


Terra Incognita, Or: A Handbook for the Scientist in Love

by portmanteau_press



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Cartography and romance make strange bedfellows, Developing Relationship, Drug Use, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone Has Issues, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Falling In Love, M/M, Mycroft Being Mycroft, Relapse, Sexual repression/confusion, Slow Burn, Virgin Sherlock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-11
Updated: 2014-04-02
Packaged: 2017-11-28 22:50:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 75,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/679758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/portmanteau_press/pseuds/portmanteau_press
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>"I don't know which is more humiliating," Mycroft spat, looking down at Sherlock with excoriating, knowing eyes. "The fact that you're thirty-four years old when you have your first orgasm, or the fact that you're so frightened by your feelings you have to pump yourself full of cocaine and heroin just so you can forget the fact you have them."</em> </p><p>Sherlock relapses in the third week of December, 2011, and is rescued by a half-Windsor knot, a Robert Louis Stevenson novel, and Mrs. Hudson's cooking.</p><p>[Not Series 3 compliant!]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Piezoelectricity

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, everyone! Here we go, my first foray into the wonderful world of Johnlock. Please enjoy! (Mature rating for drug use, language, potentially triggering scenes, and eventual sex.) 
> 
> Note: This story is entirely pre-Reichenbach, occurring between the episodes "The Hounds of Baskerville" and "The Reichenbach Fall" of Series 2, and takes absolutely nothing of Series 3 into account.

∞

 

_"He's not like that. He doesn't feel things that way. I don't think."_

_"John, my brother has the brain of a scientist or a philosopher, yet he elects to be a detective. What might we deduce about his heart?"_

_"…I don't know."_

 

∞

 

John stepped into the front room, kicking the door shut behind him and compulsively smoothing the lapels of his jacket for what seemed the thousandth time. "Well?" He took a deep breath, holding his arms out. "What do you think? Will she be impressed?"

The blanket-covered lump on the couch shifted slightly. "You've put two condoms in your wallet tonight," came the slightly muffled response from beneath the layers of heavy fabric. "You tell me." John's arms slumped to his sides.

"You know, I really hate you sometimes," he grumbled, annoyed and unable to keep from feeling slightly cheapened by the inference. The lump chuckled. John tapped his foot impatiently on the floor. "Can you at least bother to look?" he urged. "Please? We both know formal wear's much more your area, and I'm taking Mary to a nice restaurant tonight _and_ a show afterwards, so I want to look the part. _Please,_ Sherlock? For me?"

There was a pause, and then the lump shifted again, this time revealing a small sliver of face from out between a gap in two patchwork quilts and one bright grey eye blinking as it adjusted to the light. John stood still, watching as it looked him up and down.

"You look fine." The eye disappeared back into the sea of blankets.

John nodded, brushing off Sherlock's brusqueness with practiced ease. He'd been hoping for something a bit more helpful, of course, but he knew his flatmate well enough to read when the man was in a mood, and Sherlock's recent downswings had been so dreadfully black John supposed he was lucky he'd gotten any response at all. Perhaps, he mused, it had something to do with the fact that Christmas was now just a week away—Sherlock hated the holidays like the plague. He'd nearly run Mrs. Hudson out of the flat when she'd bustled in one morning two weeks prior with the same armful of decorations she'd helped them set up the year before, and then, minutes later, John himself when he'd come to the poor woman's defense. The resulting argument between the three of them had ended the same way such arguments always did—with John stewing in defeat and Sherlock insufferably smug, happy to have got his way. As he'd pointed Mrs. Hudson out the door, decorations and all, she'd thrown John an apologetic glance.

"Well, I'll just keep them downstairs for you boys in case you change your mind," she'd whispered. _"We won't,"_ Sherlock lost no time in interjecting, leaning in between them, and without further ado slammed the door in her face.

"Bloody hell, Sherlock!" John spat, bristling at the detective's rudeness, trying with no small degree of guilt to ignore the sounds of Mrs. Hudson struggling with her boxes as she descended the stairs. But Sherlock had seemed too preoccupied to notice, already elbows-deep in the disturbingly makeshift chemistry lab that had become a permanent feature of their kitchen table. John's question, of course, went unanswered, though he swore he could hear mutterings of "Illogical," "Senseless," and "Massive waste of time" under Sherlock's breath.

"You know, you didn't have a problem with decorations last year," John pointed out to him, leveling a condemning (though ultimately futile, as Sherlock didn't even bother to look up to see it) finger in his direction. "What on earth could you possibly find so offensive about them now?" There was genuine confusion in the question, but by that point Sherlock had either decided to ignore John or had tuned him out completely, for in response the detective had simply readjusted his safety goggles and hunched closer over his current experiment, something involving human hair and fire and fluoroboric acid, and just the thought of what that was almost certainly doing to the kitchen sink John hadn't the mental fortitude to contemplate. Swearing lightly, John had thrown his hands up in exasperation and let the matter drop. It was pointless anyway; Sherlock had got what he wanted and  _that,_ as the stubborn bastard always made sure, was the end of it. 

Which wasn't really the problem, thought John later. After all, the row had only been a passing squabble, a "little domestic" as Mrs. Hudson always lovingly referred to them, and besides, John was a grown man and wasn't about to be undone by anything as trivial as lack of fairy lights. No, the _problem,_ thought John, was that Sherlock's anger that afternoon never abated, and seemed only to fester and grow as the days rolled on. John was shocked that Sherlock's fingers hadn't worn to the bone the way he sawed away at his violin night after night, and during the day, well, god help the jolly shopkeeper or inattentive pedestrian fate happened to toss into his path. Poisonous glares and some rather inappropriate deductions soon became commonplace, and John was forced to apologize so many times for Sherlock's berating strangers in the street that in a matter of days the words were rolling off his tongue practically by rote. However, the afternoon Sherlock went off on a hassled mother toting a shopping bag on one arm and a wailing child on the other, revealing in one fell swoop to everyone within earshot in the busy street corner that the diet she'd been on for weeks clearly wasn't working, as her husband was currently sleeping with the family's _au pair,_ John decided that Sherlock had simply gone too far.

Now, glancing over at the small tree he'd set up near the fireplace, watching its little white lights blink on and off, John's face broke into a small smile. The thing wasn't more than a couple feet tall, and tacky and cheap to boot, yet John found it oddly charming—and the fact that Sherlock had thrown a fit when he'd found it mixed in with the rest of the shopping the day after he'd reduced that poor mother to tears only added to the appeal. As John suspected he would, Sherlock had demanded the tree be returned immediately, and even went so far as to try to bin it when John refused. But John had stood his ground, tearing the box from Sherlock's arms and arguing that he was certainly owed a tree at Christmastime if Sherlock was allowed to spray paint and shoot holes in the walls whenever he got bored, and besides—and here John summoned his most authoritative captain's voice—just because Sherlock didn't understand or feel sentiment himself didn't give him the right to stomp around London ruining the holiday for everyone else. They were keeping the tree, god dammit, for once they were going to do something _John_ wanted to do, and if that pissed Sherlock off, well, Sherlock could just _deal with it._

That final quip earned John two days' worth of Sherlock's silence and sour glares, but, thought John triumphantly, the tree survived, though forever after the detective refused to acknowledge its existence. And then, well—John's eyes darted up to the few strings of multi-colored lights tacked up around the windows. They had been a gift from Mary, a joke presented to him after he'd told her how his irritable flatmate despised the season. John knew he'd been pressing his luck in putting them up; indeed, he'd half-expected Sherlock's head to fall off when the detective had returned home one night to find them hung on display, bathing the sitting room in dim shades of rainbow. "Common," he'd spluttered hotly, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides as he stood frozen in the doorway, his face a mask of abject rage. "Juvenile." And John simply laughed and rolled his eyes and turned up the telly, leaving Sherlock to storm off to his room, slamming the door in his thunderous wake.

That had been four days ago. John wasn't sure if Sherlock had forgiven him for inundating the flat with Christmas cheer (especially considering the conspiratorial wink he'd happened to spy Mrs. Hudson giving John on the landing the day before), but if he hadn't yet he certainly wasn't going to do so today; for the past eight hours he had been sprawled motionless on the couch beneath nearly every blanket in their combined possession. "Cold," he'd muttered to John that morning after emerging from his room with yawn and a scowl, whereupon he'd cranked the heat up to a level that could only be categorized as absolutely sweltering, gathered every piece of rectangular fabric at his disposal, and then promptly buried himself beneath them all. John, silently observing the action from behind the rim of a cup of tea, hadn't pressed for explanation. Granted, the icy gusts outside had turned uncharacteristically frigid that day, but one didn't require a psychology degree to infer that Sherlock's mood had very little to do with the weather. Beyond that rudimentary insight, though, John found himself stranded against Sherlock's usual wall of mental impenetrability; the detective's sulks were a veritable force of nature, ten times as dangerous, nowhere near as predictable, and just about as enjoyable as your average hurricane.

If Sherlock wanted to be miserable, John figured, so be it.

"There's chicken tandoori leftover in the fridge, Sherlock," said John, turning into the kitchen. "Just in case you feel like eating tonight. You should, you know—you haven't at all today, and you're not on a case so you have no excuse." He opened the cupboard for a plate, then rummaged through the drawers for a clean knife and fork and placed them all carefully by the microwave. "There are clean dishes here for you to use, so do try to make an effort, yeah? I'm not sure when I'll be back, but you can make yourself some tea in the morning if I'm not here—" He filled the kettle and fished a clean mug from the drying rack in the sink, setting the two together, "—and there's cereal on the shelf if you feel up for it. I think the milk's gone off, though, so check the expiration date if you use it, all right? Other than that, just don't blow up the flat while I'm gone, and be civil to Mrs. Hudson if she comes up—"

"John."

The doctor turned to find Sherlock standing in the kitchen doorway, inexplicably up from the sofa for the first time in hours. His body was cocooned in a heavy plaid duvet he'd dragged along with him from the couch, one corner draped atop his head and its opposite trailing loosely on the floor behind him. Frowning, John set down the bowl he'd been washing just in case Sherlock felt like breakfast in the morning. "Yes, Sherlock?"

"Don't."

John blinked, confused. "Don't what?" But Sherlock didn't answer. A look of consternation flit across his face, and for the briefest second his lips pressed together as though he were struggling with his words. A moment later, though, the look vanished, and the change in expression was so subtle John wondered if he'd imagined it completely.

"Don't wear your tie like that," said Sherlock.

"My tie?" John craned his neck downwards to look for errors. "Why? What's wrong with it?"

"That's a four-in-hand knot," Sherlock told him, absently tossing a few stray locks of hair from his eyes and causing the duvet corner to bobble on his forehead. "If you're taking _Mary_ (he uttered the name with particular scorn) somewhere nice, and you want to _look the part_ (again, with particular scorn) you should use a Windsor Knot, or a half-Windsor at least."

"Don't mock me, Sherlock," warned John, turning back to the sink and his scrubbing. "I know you don't like her, all right? I get it. I know. _She_ knows. We all know. But that's not going to stop me dating her. _It's not,"_ he emphasized, as Sherlock pulled a face. "You know perfectly well what I meant when I asked you for advice—shirt and suit matching and all that—so don't get cheeky. _Anyway,_ even if I wanted to, I haven't tied a Windsor since I was in the army, which I'm sure you're perfectly aware of as well. I don't even think I remember—"

"Then let me do it."

John stuttered to a halt. "...What?"

"I'll tie it for you. Come here."

John frowned, casting suspicious eyes at Sherlock. Generosity was rare from him; selflessness a word nearly missing from his lexicon. John had half a mind that Sherlock was still teasing. And yet this was the first kind thing his flatmate had offered to do for him in ages (and in the wake of their quarreling, John thought, nothing short of a miracle). So he set the rinsed bowl in the drip rack and dried his hands on a tea towel and crossed the kitchen to Sherlock. When he drew near enough, Sherlock's hands emerged out from the folds of the quilt and closed gently around the knot of his tie, pulling it loose.

"I thought you didn't wear ties," John muttered, keeping his chin turned up and away as Sherlock straightened the silk around his neck, expertly folding the ends over and then under, tugging them this way and that. "I've never seen you wear a tie."

"Doesn't mean I don't know how to tie them," Sherlock answered. His eyes remained focused on the finished knot as he slid it upwards and secured it at John's throat. "There," he said, giving it a final nudge. "A half-Windsor." And then, almost as an afterthought, he ran a long finger down the length of the tie and buttoned John's jacket closed over it. John swallowed sheepishly, feeling the knot around his neck, and managed a smile. He didn't have to venture a look in the mirror to know it was perfectly executed.

"Thanks," he said, turning up to Sherlock.

Something flickered in Sherlock's eyes then, that same strange gleam John had spotted before, but once again it vanished almost before the doctor had had time to suspect he'd seen it at all. And yet, thought John, he simply couldn't have imagined it twice in a row; no, it was something, something Sherlock was trying to tell him without words, and as their eyes lingered on one another just a beat too long John was sure he saw it again— _There!_ —swimming right below the surface, but what was it, what, what, _what—?_

"Your cab's here," Sherlock said suddenly, and no sooner had he spoken than the bell downstairs rang. As if on cue, Sherlock's hands retracted back into the blanket and with a silent flourish he spun about, flouncing from the kitchen and falling back onto the couch with a sigh. John bit his lip, wondering, but the bizarre moment had passed, and with a shrug he reached for his coat on the hook by the door.

"Try to remember to eat," he said over his shoulder. "I've got my mobile if you need me. If you _need_ me, Sherlock," he added quickly. "You'll remember our conversation on the differences between needing and boredom."

"They do match, John."

John paused halfway through the door, then turned around, poking his head back around the corner of the sitting room. "What was that?"

"Your suit and shirt," Sherlock clarified, propping himself up into a sitting position and peering at John from his nest upon the couch. "They do match."

A small grin tugged at John's lips. "Oh. Well. Thank you, Sherlock."

Sherlock nodded, continuing to stare. In a way he'd told a half-truth, a lie by omission: John's outfit did match, but it also looked…it looked…Sherlock pursed his lips, trying to think of the proper word, and arrived at _good._ Yes, that was it. John looked good.

It was not the first time Sherlock had come to such a conclusion. He knew as John did, that as a doctor who'd served in the military and who'd spent all his formative university nights holed up in labs and libraries with few distractions, he'd come out of it a smart dresser, but not incredibly fashion-forward. John had been popular enough in that time, Sherlock surmised, social, amiable—but never posh. Confident, but modest, and he'd never considered himself remarkably attractive. And yet in spite of all that, or perhaps because of it, John managed to maintain a certain kind of oblivious, nerdish charm that even Sherlock had come to accept in recent months as undeniably endearing. After all, this was a man who owned a closet full of cable-knit jumpers and jeans, checked collared shirts and worn leather shoes, and couldn't afford much better and didn't care to, even if it meant looking rather plain next to someone like Sherlock, who owned nothing but tailored suits and Armani brogues and refused all lesser alternatives. But Sherlock also knew from firsthand experience that John could clean up nicely when he wanted, and tonight, fitted out in his best suit—a fine, dove grey wool—Sherlock couldn't help but acknowledge that John cut a surprisingly dashing figure, from his crisp blue shirt and patterned tie right down to his argyle socks. _Sexy,_ Sherlock thought, and the word took him by surprise, because he'd never really thought of anyone as being sexy before, even John. But that was it, better than good, and far more exact: sexy. Tonight, John Watson looked _sexy._

Sherlock suppressed a shiver.

"You look… _nice,_ " he finally mumbled. "Very handsome." The words sounded clumsy on his lips, but John, fussing with his scarf in the doorway and still smiling that little prideful smile that was far too becoming than it had any right to be on his clear, open face, didn't seem to notice.

"Thanks, Sherlock," he said softly. "That means a lot, coming from you."

Curious words, and even stranger sentiment behind them, and once again a pregnant pause bloomed between the two men, and they seemed to be on the cusp of breaching something very odd indeed. But before either could break the silence Mrs. Hudson was calling up from the ground level to tell John his cabbie was at the door, and the moment dissipated completely. John blinked, then shrugged his coat on over his shoulders. "Coming, Mrs. Hudson!" he called after her, and with a last nod and wave to Sherlock (along with a final plea for him to eat something tonight, _anything_ ), John disappeared down the stairs.

Sherlock stared after him, deeply silent and bizarrely affected, and long after he heard the front door slam closed he would have sworn he could feel the sound of its shutting reverberating in the hollowness of his own chest cavity.

For a moment the flat was quiet save the intermittent crackling of the fire coupled with that resonant echoing, and those few seconds that filled the space of John's departure quickly stretched into minutes, piling up one after the other, spilling onto the space of Sherlock's mind and multiplying upon contact until their combined load threatened to tip itself over into cavernous eternity—

And then, as though some great internal switch had been flipped, Sherlock was suddenly restless, practically _itching_ to move.

He wanted to do a million things at once. He wanted a case; he wanted to chase a criminal through the streets of London, dark alleys and dank sewers and high above on rooftops, leaping from one to the next, feeling the wind on his face and the breathless thrill of cheating death with every jump. He wanted the adrenaline of the solution—that fantastic moment when all the evidence aligned and crystallized into a truth he alone could decipher—he, Sherlock Holmes, and no one else. He wanted Lestrade's congratulations and bumbling thanks, Donavan's spite and Anderson's jealousy, and the reporters and the papers and all their attention he so voraciously loved to hate, and he wanted John, good old dependable John, standing off on the sidelines, waiting for him in the corner with his hands in his pockets, smiling up at him, proud. And then Sherlock twitched, heart racing, eyes shining, overcome with something new. For in that instant he also wanted _more,_ wanted to leap from the couch and call after John, or run after him, hail a cab and track him down and grab a hold of John's coat and hold him, breathing in the scent of John's skin and shampoo and the musky cologne he only wore on special occasions like tonight. Sherlock wanted to scream. He wanted to shoot holes in the walls; he wanted to smash every object in the flat to pieces. He wanted to take all of John's girlfriends by their scrawny, simpering necks and strangle them one by one, then do the same of every woman in London, in the whole of England, and then John would have no choice but to take _him_ out to dinner and a show afterwards, and wear his best suit for _him_ and put cologne on for _him…_

…and put two condoms in his wallet for _him…_

"No!"

The word was out from Sherlock's lips almost as immediately as the thought was in his head. Springing from the couch as though he'd been badly shocked, Sherlock stumbled wildly to his feet, sending pillows and blankets flying in all directions and shaking his head in stunned disbelief. He couldn't understand why—why would he even _think_ something so absolutely _disgusting?_ Impossible. No. He was Sherlock Holmes, and he'd never wanted… _that_ before, not ever. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath, focusing on stabilizing his racing mind. _Be rational,_ he thought. _Remember who you are. Calm down._

_Calm down._

_Calm. Down._

And then it happened.

It happened very quickly. Much, much later, years and years and decades later, Sherlock would think that he must have somehow sensed its approach, for there was no other way to explain in that moment his set jaw, and his hands clenching the edge of the blanket he'd pulled with him, his back and shoulders tensing in anticipation as though a great wave was about to crash over him and sweep him away.

It did, and it happened very quickly. He did not, could not, stop it coming.

In that moment, the skeletal facts: He was William Sherlock Scott Holmes, consulting detective, resident of London, England, and he was exactly thirty-four years, eleven months, and eighteen days old. He had exactly two parents, tragically deceased, exactly one brother, tragically _not_ -deceased, and exactly one John Watson, his friend, and until that moment nothing more than just that. In regards to everything that came after, the tumult of change, and the Pandora's Box of strife and brilliance that was unleashed upon him and left to peter out in fits and starts from that point until his dying day, Sherlock, a man devoted to the sanctity of logic, never measured anything as relevant and as categorically true as the three simple and therefore most critical facts gained in that instant, the moment in which his life changed irrevocably and forever:

That the paradigm shift, the only one he ever underwent in the course of his life, happened, that it happened at that very moment, and that it happened very quickly.

The thought of John snapped back into Sherlock's brain.

It lit up his neurons like a match to magnesium—John, smiling, charming, dressed in his dove grey suit, and he was standing in the kitchen and asking Sherlock to tie his tie again, except that this time Sherlock didn't, this time Sherlock gathered the silk in his hands and pulled John into him, hard, rough, the way he'd wanted to just minutes before—

_"No!"_

Sherlock dropped the blanket, reaching out to steady himself against a nearby wall with one hand and pulling at his hair in distress with the other. Where had that image come from? Why was it suddenly filling his brain, pushing all other thoughts aside? And why couldn't he make it go away? "Stop it," he muttered, though the edge in his breathy, panicked voice made his heart race all the faster. "Stop it, stop it, stop it." But Sherlock could feel his body betraying him even as he spoke, and his pleas dissolved into a heated whimper as an uncomfortable flush ran through him, followed closely (to his complete dismay) by a ball of fuzzy warmth that welled in his stomach before working its way down and pooling between his legs.

"Nngh…" Sherlock's tongue rolled uselessly behind his teeth, and he found the garbled nonsense pouring from his mouth at once humiliating and frightful. Grimacing at his own incompetence, he pressed his forehead into the wall, trying to will the image of John away, but it only intensified and shifted in form: Now, bright morning light was pouring through the sitting room windows, and John was freshly showered and sitting in his favorite chair. He was reading the newspaper like always, absentmindedly humming some tone-deaf tune like always, but this time when Sherlock walked past him John reached out and grabbed his hand, casting the paper aside and pulling Sherlock into his lap before nuzzling into the small of his back with a soft, throaty growl. Panting into the wallpaper, Sherlock could almost _feel_ the way John's strong soldier hands would hold him, slipping under his cotton shirt and running up his chest to caress his nipples lovingly, and how, if Sherlock would arch his back and position himself _just so,_ he'd be able to feel John's burgeoning erection through the seat of his trousers—

Sherlock moaned, gasping against the wall as a particularly violent sensation he didn't completely understand bled through his extremities, including his penis. He could feel it pressing against his pants now, begging to be touched, and it took him summoning every last modicum of restraint he had to keep from plunging his hands down to his crotch, though to do what he wasn't exactly sure. And yet _Friction!_ his brain screamed, so powerfully that Sherlock couldn't keep from glancing down at the tented fabric and the little spot of wetness beginning to spread at its peak. A strangled gasp caught in his throat. There was something so…so unbelievably _stimulating_ about that sight, of himself aroused, and then, quite without meaning to and almost certainly guided by some latent instinct that only made him hate his body further, Sherlock snapped his hips forward and ground them against the wall with a heated cry. The pressure sent something electric zipping up his spine, a wild tangle of pleasure and warmth, and before Sherlock knew what he was doing his body repeated the motion, rutting against the wall once more in a long, hard drag that had his entire frame tensing in primal satisfaction.

It happened a third time, then a fourth, and Sherlock found himself sinking weak-kneed to the floor, groaning piteously and detesting the way his whole body felt hot and sticky and stifled by everything around him. He yearned to open a window and hurl himself onto the frigid pavement below, or, better yet, to take John's Browning and put a bullet through his head and end this undignified torture. But he couldn't; all Sherlock could do, it seemed, was pant and writhe upon the floor and think of John, and the ruthless fantasy bubbled back up from the dark depths of his mind and shifted again: This time, John was pinned beneath him, naked, red-faced, moaning, his legs wrapped tightly around Sherlock's waist, and Sherlock was naked too, sweat dripping from his temples as he dug his nails into the twisted flesh of John's Afghanistan scar and thrust shamelessly into him, again and again and again. They were having sex on Mycroft's desk, no, they were having sex in the sitting room at Buckingham Palace, and suddenly Mycroft was there, horrified and furious, and all Sherlock did was laugh in his brother's face and ram into John harder, making the doctor throw his head back and scream _Sherlock! Sherlock! Sherlock!_ because Sherlock wanted Mycroft to see, he wanted Mycroft to have perfect, incontrovertible proof that sex didn't _alarm_ him and that he wasn't a virgin, that he knew how it worked and knew how to love someone and be loved back. And then, staring his brother straight in the eye, Sherlock thrust deep into John a final time, and John screamed and came and Sherlock did too, and then they kissed, breathing each other in and wrapped up in such perfect, ferocious ecstasy that everything else fell away, Mycroft and Buckingham Palace and _everything,_ and all that was left was John and Sherlock, Sherlock and John, together—

_"John!"_

Sherlock groaned, and his back arched up off the floor as orgasm tore through his body. It was wonderful, terrible, and Sherlock hated every second of it, because even as the throes of pleasure ravaged him he was dreadfully cognizant of a loud _boom_ echoing through his mind's eye as every entrance to his mind palace slammed shut at once, leaving him petrified and stranded and on the _outside._ It was instantaneous severance, deep, visceral, and highly disturbing—suddenly, for the first time in his life, Sherlock was without information, no thoughts, no reason, no weapon to bear against the sensations devouring him, and the flesh and blood fingers digging into the floorboards as the last of his ejaculate pulsed into his pants mirrored metaphorical fingers as they scrabbled desperately at the bolted doors of the great mental construct. He needed to get back inside, had to, but was impossible to think, all he could do was _feel,_ and that was the most unbearable thing of all, how very _much_ he was feeling at this moment, and he was losing himself in it, surely, because a Sherlock who couldn't think wasn't Sherlock at all—

A final whimper tumbled from Sherlock's lips, and then he collapsed, breathless, disoriented, and weak. Blinking, barely conscious of his actions, he rolled to his side and curled his body into a tight ball, trembling uncontrollably and trying to ignore the new and unpleasant wetness in his pants.

Above him, the room spun. Christmas LEDs chased after trails of incandescent lamplight, mingling with the dancing shadows cast off from the fire, and only then, far in the distance, did Sherlock hear the groaning of doors on massive, old-world hinges as his mind palace swung open again. Relieved, he dragged himself back inside...only to immediately stop short, for the cool stones beneath him now seemed somehow foreign, the vaulted arches high above and the winding stairs and mantled doors all subtly shifted in pitch, shape, and timbre. It was as though he were encountering his mind palace through Carroll's looking-glass and couldn't drop the shade, and slowly, as Sherlock tried door after door, tearing at an increasingly frantic pace through an endless stream of unfamiliar halls and passageways, he realized at last with a kind of stuttering, seizing terror that _he_ was the something different, the thing that had changed. He was the thing that no longer fit.

The paradigm shift was done.

That this was not truly an end but a mere change in direction was insight gained only in retrospect. At the time, as it was, Sherlock felt only overwhelming confusion, a terrific sense of loss coupled with the grossly petrifying realization that nothing like this had never happened to him before. To think that he, _he,_ had just…no, he didn't even want to _think_ the word, it was so appalling. It was _sick._ But it had escalated so quickly, and he'd been so powerless once it had begun! _Surely,_  Sherlock thought, _I'm not to blame._ And yet the thing, the _act,_ clung to him still, _was_ him, and refused to be broken down, analyzed or understood.

Sherlock swallowed thickly, gripping his arms to his chest. It seemed he'd dealt himself the ultimate blow—he'd collected an experience so wholly new and unlike anything else he'd ever known, something so completely of the realm of feeling and base instinct, that it defied logic and any attempt to cobble it into a measurable entity. Nothing in the whole of his mind palace could serve as adequate comparison. Terrible. Unforgivable. For god's sake, he was lying crumpled on the floor in a sorry, shivering heap! How could anyone ever do this willingly? _How?_ The question repeated _ad nauseam_ in Sherlock's head, spiteful and tinged with panic. _Arousal. Orgasm._ How could anyone ever find such a horrid loss of control enjoyable? Had…had he found it enjoyable?

_What's wrong with me?_

Sherlock's throat burned, and now it was _that_ question rolling around in his skull, growing larger and louder until the shame of it pried a heaving sob from his throat. Determined not to break down, Sherlock curled tighter, and suddenly felt overwhelmingly exposed—he wanted John, yes, John would know what to do; John would be able to explain this to him and clean him up and set him right again, and then Sherlock would delete this entire experience, and then—the detective fidgeted, grappling for the familiar—and then he and John could have tea and watch crap telly and fight about who would do the washing up this time around and things would go back to the way they were supposed to be. To _normal._

But no, impossible, because Sherlock didn't want John to see him like this. He didn't want John to see him ever again.

_—It's his first stint in detox, and he's lying in a bed wrapped in rough, bleach-smelling sheets—_

And at that moment a sudden wave of nausea swept over Sherlock; scrabbling from the floor, he barely made it to the bathroom in time to vomit up the contents of his stomach into the toilet. He hadn't eaten in nearly a day and so it wasn't much more than bile, but it was enough to sear the back of his throat and force a cold sweat from his pores, and when he was finished he coughed, gagging, trying to spit what remained of the noxious acid from his mouth. _Disgusting,_ he thought, clinging weakly to the porcelain bowl. _Absolutely repellent._ And he vomited a second time.

He binned his soiled pants as soon as he regained the energy to stand, and used a towel to wipe his lower half clean as best he could manage. After making a mental note to burn the incriminating evidence as soon and as discretely as possible, Sherlock turned to the sink and washed his hands…and then washed them again, and again, and again, and as he was busy scraping nonexistent detritus out from beneath his left thumbnail a part of him frantically wondered if this was his OCD resurfacing, rearing its ugly head for the first time since adolescence, but he couldn't help it, he couldn't stop. His hands simply _weren't getting clean._

But then Sherlock caught his refection in the mirror, and he froze.

Pallid skin glistening with a sour sheen. Mussed curls sticking unattractively to the sides of an anxious, ashen face. A tee shirt, damp, clinging to his torso and making him itch, and beneath that, nothing, save a dark dense patch of hair and his cock hanging limply between his legs. Sherlock gripped the sink, unable to tear his eyes away from the nervous wreck staring back at him through the glass. Trembling body. Weak knees. Eyes wide and bright and filled with fear.

With _fear_.

Emotion.

 _Look at me. I'm afraid, John. Afraid._ Sherlock's own voice rumbled back through the past, mocking him. _Interesting, yes? Emotions…the grit on the lens, the fly in the ointment—_

_—It's his first stint in detox, and he's lying in a bed wrapped in rough, bleach-smelling sheets—_

Sherlock didn't remember striking the mirror. He must've, though, and several times, because suddenly it was shattered and the sound of breaking glass was in his ears and shards it were falling down into the sink, and then there was—red, red drops on white porcelain and trails of it running down his hand; he'd sliced his knuckles open on the glass, yes, that's what he'd done. And it hurt, oh god, it stung terribly, but with half the mirror missing Sherlock couldn't see his awful reflection any longer, and that was a good, good thing.

Still breathing heavily, Sherlock shut the water off. His movements were slow and stiff, and as he turned from the sink blood dripped from his fingertips onto the floor, smearing brightly beneath his leaden feet. His fingers left a lurid welt of crimson glistening on the plastic switch when he reached up to shut off the light.

_John. John will be upset with the mess—_

Sherlock paused in the doorway. For a moment, he was filled with an uncharacteristically domestic impulse, a desire to fix what he'd broken. To turn around, clean and wrap his hand, to sweep the glass from the floor and sink, to mop the blood and disinfect the surfaces. Then John wouldn't be forced to do it himself when he returned. Then John wouldn't be mad. Then—and a small, obscenely joyous kernel of hope sprouted in Sherlock's chest at the very thought—then John might even be grateful; John would see Sherlock was thinking of him, trying to do something nice. For him.

But no, another, harsher part of his brain interrupted, and darkness clamped down on the fledgling mote of hope and squashed it into smoke, don't be daft; clean this up now, you great pillock, and John won't know you've done anything at all. He won't get it. He won't understand. You've done enough damage already. Leave it be.

Sherlock hung his head as the desire drained away. Dull relief crept over him in its place, for the urge, however commendable, had felt misplaced, like a square peg jammed in a round hole.

He released a breath, something between a sigh and a sob.

And yet there was something sickly in this specific shade of comfort, he thought, something that left an unpalatable and uncomfortably familiar taste lodged in the back of his throat. Sherlock grunted weakly, shutting his eyes against it even as he felt it overrun his senses like thick fog. Pressing in, it mixed with the nighttime noise out on Baker Street and a low, resonant whisper that warned, very softly, _No, don't go back there, don't be that person again._ Then came a distant siren, Sherlock's own breath rushing in his ears, coalescing together to say, _It's okay, sexual arousal is just biology, and biology is science,_ and a motorbike tearing along the road in a way that urged, _Don't be afraid! John is a doctor. John is your friend!_  And then, beneath it all, the heated thudding in his chest grew and Sherlock began to wonder, awestruck with sudden possibility (and there was that golden kernel of hope again, rising like a phoenix from the ashes),  _John might even be flattered, John might even blush, John might even—_  
  
 _—might even—_  
  
 _—might even want—_  
  
But then, in an event of cosmic timing as perfectly cinematic as it was perfectly cruel, someone's too-loud television erupted with a roar of laughter from somewhere in the building. It was just sitcom laugh track bleeding through thin walls, but it was enough to collapse all of Sherlock's fragile imaginings on the spot, and all he could think in that moment was how colossally foolish he was acting, and then another peal of laughter echoed through his ears and his heart clenched painfully and the urge to climb out of and away from his mind had never felt greater. He couldn't bear the weight of himself any longer.  _No! No! No! No!_  screamed the clunking engine of a passing car, but too late—Sherlock detached, and the  _No! No! No!_ was just a clunking engine once more, and in that instant Sherlock became beyond everything, everything except the very next thing he was about to do—one call, maybe two—and the small, hated object stashed beneath the loose floorboard in the back of his bedroom closet, and the way it had pulled him back into its gravitational orbit at last.  
  
 _Like a planet going round a star,_  his brain chimed stupidly, offering up the comparison in meager apology.  _Like a comet, thrust out deep into space along the curve of its elliptical but always coming back, never quite able to break free._  But Sherlock refused to be mocked, not by his own brain, and in spiteful retribution he furiously deleted everything he knew about planets and solar systems and comets and stars so many times over no astronomer alive or dead could ever hope to put the knowledge back.  
  
It took just a few seconds; his face didn't even twitch with the effort and his hand still rested idly on the handle of the bathroom door.  _Drip, drip, drip,_  went the thin flow of blood from his fingers to the ground. Sherlock did not clean it up. He took a jerky step forward and closed the door quietly behind him.


	2. The Leidenfrost Effect

Sherlock pulled the front door open, cringing against the blast of icy air that flooded the foyer and at the sight of the nubby old man waiting for him on the stoop, his tattered trainers half buried in freshly fallen snow. "You look terrible," the detective deadpanned, eyeing him up and down. But the man only shrugged his shoulders, hacking out a wheezing laugh that immediately congealed into a puff of mist in the thin night air.

"Now, now, Mr. 'Olmes," he warned playfully, grinning widely and showing off an incomplete set of very yellow teeth, three fewer than when Sherlock had seen him last. "That ain't a very kind way to greet your dear old Nicky, is it? And after I come all this way to see you? I don't usually make 'ouse calls, you know." Another wheezing laugh, another puff of breath. Sherlock's lips pressed into a thin white line.

"Get in," he growled, stepping aside and opening the door a bit wider, just enough to let Nicky waltz past before shutting it quickly. The man's fetid odor was an immediate presence, a practical assault on Sherlock's nostrils. "Keep quiet," he managed to bite out, blinking his eyes rapidly in an effort to keep them from watering. "The last thing I need is my landlady hearing you." Nicky bobbed his head in response, casting red-rimmed eyes about the prim hallway before turning slightly upon his heel to take it in from all angles.

"Nice place you got 'ere," he murmured, his chapped lips turning up fractionally to form a sideways smile. A grubby index finger nipped out from beneath the cuff of his coat to brush lightly along the floral-patterned wallpaper. "Bit of an upgrade after that tumbledown bed-sit out in Montague, eh?" The dealer's gaze flicked brazenly back to Sherlock, as if daring the detective to be surprised he'd retained the information after so long.

Sherlock sucked in a breath, held it a moment, then exhaled a clipped command: _"Don't touch anything."_ Nicky pursed his lips, a combative gleam crossing his sunken eyes before he—very deliberately—lifted his finger from the wall. "And leave the cap," Sherlock added, his stony eyes swiveling to freeze the dealer's hand just as it turned upwards to his head. "Let's try to keep the risk of louse infestation to a minimum." Nicky shrugged again, unoffended, and his twitchy hands settled back into his pockets like birds into their nests. For a moment the two men slid into competitive silence, staring at each other and wordlessly appraising, dealer to client. Sherlock noted a small, curving scar on Nicky's right cheek, half-hidden by stubble and grime, that hadn't been there six years ago. Yet aside from that and the three lost teeth, the man had barely changed, a remarkable feat considering Nicky's notoriety as a drugs dealer was eclipsed only by the notoriety of his chronic homelessness; he was even wearing many of the same clothes Sherlock remembered from their past encounters. The detective shifted his weight, suddenly wishing he'd answered the door in something more than his pants and overcoat. His bare toes curled upon the floorboards.

 _"Enough,"_ he finally huffed, breaking their uncomfortable silence. "Let's get this over with. I'm assuming you have what I asked for?" Nicky nodded, and without further ado reached inside several layers of clothing to extract two small plastic bags from some clandestine pocket.

Sherlock snatched them up at once. Squinting in the foyer's low light, he closely examined the contents of each before opening one packet and licking his finger, dipping the digit into the powdery substance and then bringing it to his mouth for a quick taste. His eyebrow quirked at the flavor.

"Not bad," he murmured, unable to keep from sounding faintly surprised, and Nicky smiled, puffing his chest out in mock pride.

"Well o' course, sweet'eart," he drawled, "it's only the best for you. Boffin Mr. 'Olmes, the man too smart to fool—ain't that what all the papers say these days?" He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Though I knew that already, didn't I?" Sherlock threw him a stormy look, but to his extreme frustration the dealer's face only split open in another flash of mangled teeth, and the detective scowled, stuffing the packets into his breast pocket and pulling out a small wad of cash.

"What do I owe you?" he said, more than ready for Nicky to be out of his building and as far away from Baker Street as possible. But the dealer held up his hands, shaking his head at the notes.

"Oh no, sir, first round's always on the 'ouse," he said, and this time he didn't bother checking the tease in his unctuous voice or his implication. And the words struck home; the color seemed to simultaneously flood and drain from Sherlock's face, turning the tops of his cheeks a mottled pink as a look of livid indignation swept quickly over his features. "Company policy," Nicky added, unable to resist a goading wink. "Remember?" Sherlock's glare curdled into something positively murderous.

_"Then get out."_

The detective's voice was nearly infrasonic, his tone deadly enough to stutter hearts. But Nicky only chuckled, turning blithely for the door. A dim red flag sprung up in the back of Sherlock's brain as the man reached for the handle, something about fingerprints and footprints and residue and wanting to keep all evidence of Nicky's visit to 221B closely under wraps, but Sherlock couldn't move; oh no, Sherlock would absolutely _explode_ if he had to move right now.

"See you soon, then, Mr. 'Olmes," Nicky chirped out, and with a lackadaisical tip of his cap he closed the front door on the detective, slipping back into the folds of frigid night.

Had Sherlock been feeling particularly generous, he might have considered offering the man a more covert exit from the building. The detective knew one himself, had had it mapped out and memorized before even moving in to Baker Street, and he knew right where to go, the exact steps needed to stay in the shadows and free from the gaze of the (almost) omnipresent CCTV cameras. Had he been feeling particularly generous, Sherlock might have considered passing said information along, coupled with a warning for Nicky to keep his eyes peeled for black cars and men in suits on his journey back down into London's seedy underbelly. Now, however, the thought of Mycroft's cronies nabbing the dealer off the street sometime in the next few hours, roughing him up in some abandoned warehouse until he finally cracked and admitted through bloodied teeth that yes, he did sell Sherlock Holmes cocaine and heroin tonight, filled Sherlock with black, vindictive joy.

He knew it was self-defeating. For even if Mycroft was keeping tabs on the flat (and Sherlock knew he was), Nicky's clean escape might still be enough stave off a visit from Sherlock's own personal Grand Inquisitor. But, thought the detective heavily, Nicky had already gone, the agents were likely already on the move, and of course that meant it was only a matter of time before Mycroft knew, and, therefore, that Sherlock would have Mycroft to deal with come morning. The detective's face tightened as he imagined how it would undoubtedly be, a somber meeting filled with his brother's patronizing stares ( _aggravating)_ and little disappointed sighs ( _conceited)_ , and with John and the way he would grip his mug for support as he listened to their slew of curt exchanges, mouth pinched in at the corners and face clouded with something that would just be unbearably, achingly _sad_ —

But those were thoughts for tomorrow. Sherlock swallowed thickly and shut his eyes, pushing them away. He'd deal with Mycroft, with John, with everything else. He would.

But, god help him, he'd deal with everything tomorrow.

 

∞

 

An hour later found Sherlock sitting motionless on the edge of his bed, cloaked his dressing robe and darkness and clutching a small leather case in his lap. Keeping his eyes focused on the window in front of him and the small ribbon of streetlight shining in at the edges of the blinds, his lips moved silently as he recited the elements of the periodic table to himself for the seventh time in a row. He finished— _Ununoctium, Uuo, atomic number 118, atomic weight 294, possible noble gas, no stable isotopes_ —decided it wasn't working, and then switched to listing prime numbers: _2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13…_ He could go as high as he wanted, as far as he could do the math.

But Sherlock knew he was just wasting time.

When he reached 1,187 he stood up and brought the case into the kitchen.

Lestrade had told Sherlock to ring him if he'd ever felt himself on the verge of relapse. Mrs. Hudson had done the same. Even Mycroft had extended the offer (begrudgingly and strictly out of fraternal duty, Sherlock suspected, and yet, there it was). John had never known Sherlock as an addict, and while they'd never discussed his past drug use directly, the detective knew John was well aware of it and would've been all too willing to come home and talk him down tonight. But Sherlock wasn't going to call any of them. After all, he didn't want their _help_ , he didn't want their _pity_ , and, most importantly, he didn't want them to make him stop. Trails of dried blood from the now clotted gashes across his knuckles mapped a miniature city on Sherlock's hand as it trembled, hovering over the metal swinging clasp that kept the case shut. Was this a mistake, he wondered? Was this failure? But then Sherlock's eyes flickered to the front room, and the spot on the floor where just a couple hours earlier he'd writhed and moaned and screamed John's name, ejaculating hard into his pants—

Sherlock opened the case.

In the past, opening the case had been the tipping point. In the past, if the case wasn't open, Sherlock knew he could still walk away. That's why he'd kept it stashed deep in his closet all this time, even after rehab, and then, shortly after, when he'd cleaned himself up for good. He'd never discussed the case with anyone; no one knew he still had it. It was a relic, a reminder, and for six years, two months, and thirteen days, it had been closed. Now it was open again, and Sherlock tipped its contents unceremoniously onto the table: a lighter, a spoon, two shrink-wrapped hypodermic needles, and a half-empty bag of syringe filters. Sherlock took a long, shuddering breath, then dropped the two packets of newly acquired drugs on top of it all.

His kit.

He fell back into the routine with ease, despite being several years out of practice. It wasn't a matter of recalling the required information from his mind palace; some things, Sherlock knew from experience, simply couldn't be stored away for future reference. Some things, Sherlock knew, etched themselves onto the backs of one's retinas and _stayed_. Pulling the electronic scale he kept on the table with the rest of his chemistry equipment close, Sherlock tared it with the spoon and then emptied a good portion of the cocaine into it, watching anxiously as the digital readout ticked up, up, up, to just the right amount. He reached for the heroin next, then, in a fit of clarity, paused. Perhaps not. After all, he'd only used heroin a few times in his life, and those times had been his lowest, when his addiction had been the most severe. When even the intense rush of cocaine had no longer been enough.

Sherlock frowned. The only time he'd ever overdosed had been on heroin. The event itself remained a dense fog in his memory, but afterwards, lying in a hospital bed as an IV fed fluids into a visibly abused vein, Sherlock could remember listening drowsily as a nurse explained how he'd been found in his flat, curled in his chair and completely unresponsive. Later on, he'd worked the details out of one of the responding paramedics, listening guardedly as the man grimly described the sight of Sherlock's blue lips and sallow skin and the way he'd been just inches from death upon their arrival, the bloodied needle still dangling in his listless fingers…

_—It's his first stint in detox, and he's lying in a bed wrapped in rough, bleach-smelling sheets—_

Sherlock shook his head, clearing the memories away. He would do better this time. He'd been young and desperate and inexperienced then; this time, he wouldn't make such a plebeian mistake. And so he poured out a portion of the heroin into the spoon as well, then got up and drew a glass of water from the tap. The niggling wariness sticking at the back of his mind over the combination—perhaps the closest thing he had to a conscience—only compelled him to work faster. _Science,_ Sherlock thought, narrowing his mind to focus entirely on the steps. _This is science._

Step one: Cooking. Simple enough, Sherlock thought, and he peeled open a syringe, popping off the needle cap and using it to add a few milliliters of the water in the glass to the spoon. The weight of the lighter felt good in the palm of his hand when he picked it up, and there was something so vibrant and exhilarating and so very _yes_ about igniting it beneath the bowl, the sound of it and smell of butane and the small scrape of resistance of the spark wheel before it gave way beneath his thumb—

_—It's his first stint in detox, and he's lying in a bed wrapped in rough, bleach-smelling sheets—_

The memories swept up from Sherlock's subconscious as his eyes widened slightly, spellbound by the sight of the powders as they began to dissolve and melt in the licking heat of the blue-orange flame—

_—It's his first stint in detox, and he's lying in a bed wrapped in rough, bleach-smelling sheets. His doctor, who in time Sherlock will come to regard as a sneering, contemptuous twat, is standing over him, holding a bedpan as Sherlock vomits into it. He's propping Sherlock upright because the Sherlock hasn't the strength to do so himself, and, as Sherlock is retching, is jabbering on about the symptoms of withdrawal from long-term drugs dependency, ostensibly in order to enlighten and calm his patient and yet to Sherlock, who was admitted a mere twenty hours previously and who can already feel the cravings running incessantly up his track-marked arms, the narration is nothing but moronic and unnecessary and crushingly cruel._

_His body gives a final heave and then shudders involuntarily as the wave of nausea finally ebbs, leaving little in its wake but hollow misery and the stench of sick. The doctor wipes Sherlock's mouth and grips him tighter. Sherlock wishes with all his might to hurl the man to the ground. Wouldn't it be heavenly to bash his head against the bed railing and watch his brains spill across the floor? But the thought of slick, oozing grey matter mixing with the smell of blood and spinal fluid and industrial disinfectant curdles his gut, and before he can stop himself Sherlock whimpers and lurches forward into the pan again—_

Step two: Filter. Carefully, so as not to spill the now bubbling contents, Sherlock set the spoon down upon the table, then unscrewed the needle from the syringe and snapped on a filter—better always to take precautions than wind up with a vein clogged by a stray granule of wax or chalk, regardless of whatever assurances taste and Nicky's name could offer. Sherlock sniffed, watching with unbridled fascination as the liquid was drawn up into the little plastic cylinder, and as soon as the last drop was inside he tore off the filter and screwed the needle back in place. He could feel his pulse racing, his mind racing. His fingers twitched as he worked.

_—The Woman is staring at Sherlock with coy, half-parted lips, and John is staring uncomfortably up at the two of them from across the table. Sherlock's eyes follow a single bead of water as it drips from her damp hair and runs along the curve of her milky throat, and he feels, rather than hears, his reply, that he's never begged for mercy in his life. But this is a lie, and all three people in the room know it. The Woman believes Sherlock is flustered, and lying out of embarrassment, John, that Sherlock is confused, and lying out of pride. Both sense his hesitation and unease, and both assume that Sherlock's brain has faltered, ground to a screeching halt by a single coquettish suggestion._

_But both The Woman and John are wrong._

_Because at that moment Sherlock's brain couldn't be racing faster, and if he seems shuttered and baffled it's only because the flat has telescoped away, and he's now standing frozen in the corner of a white room with a white bed watching as a spindly young man convulses atop his mattress and shamelessly begs his doctor for cocaine. Aghast, Sherlock watches in horror as the doctor shakes his head and turns away, and he watches as the man in the bed howls in protest, then switches tactics and begs for heroin. Then begs for methadone. Then clutches at the hem of the starched white coat as it brushes resolutely past him and begs for morphine, for oxycodone, for anything to make the pain stop. But he receives nothing, and then the door clicks shut and locks, trapping Sherlock alone with this other him, and then it's night, and the other Sherlock is begging for death, blubbering and screaming his throat raw in the darkness and straining against the restraints they've used to strap him to the bed because the orderlies don't trust him and because he's too clever; he'd find a way to kill them or himself with his bare hands if they didn't take precautions—_

_And in the corner, and then back in the flat, Sherlock's breaths come short and shallow, and he can't turn away no matter how hard he tries, can't un-hear the screams no matter how hard he tries, and just inches away, all but forgotten, The Woman bats her eyes and purses her stupid, teasing lips—_

Step three: Tourniquet. Sherlock didn't have a proper tourniquet, but he'd also never been one to shy away from a chance to improvise, and pulled the sash loose from his dressing robe and quickly wound it around his upper arm, figuring it would work just as well. It would have to. Step four: Sterilize, and _dammit hurry up already go go go—_ Sherlock stood up, sweating slightly as he plunged his hands into the heaps of clutter covering the table in search of his collection of bottled chemicals, knocking objects left and right in haste. A stray Erlenmeyer flask tipped to the floor and shattered, and then his fractionating column, and Sherlock found he couldn't care less. Glass crunched beneath his bare feet and he could feel the soft tack of blood between his soles and the linoleum, and that was a problem; there was something unsanitary about that, surely, but he'd already spotted what he was looking for, and with a little groan of satisfaction he plucked the ethanol from the assortment of solvents and then used a napkin to hastily swab his inner elbow. He was rushing now, desperate for the high, and he squirmed impatiently as the clear liquid evaporated off his skin, leaving behind nothing but the cool indigo ribbon of the Median cubital vein pulsing just beneath the surface. Glorious.

_—He's sweating, sniveling, moaning in agony, with frothy saliva dribbling down his chin like a senseless invalid. But then Sherlock can hear muted noises coming down the hall, and so he musters every inch of resolve left to him and stills, eyes darting wildly in all directions as his ears strain to grasp anything beyond the confines of his little prison. The soft buzzing halts just outside his room, low voices muffled by the heavy door, and suddenly Mycroft's face sweeps by the small window above the handle and the man turns, venturing a sidelong glance into the white cell containing his younger brother._

_Mycroft has lost two pounds in the last week, and the window perfectly frames the bags under his eyes and his expression of impatience and weary disgust. Sherlock sees all of this and thrashes upon the bed in response, bearing his teeth like a rabid animal, and Mycroft's face sours at the display and _immediately_ glides from view. Sherlock's fists clench handfuls of bed sheet. _ How dare he, _he thinks,_ how dare he, _but Sherlock doesn't know how to finish that sentence nor what he really wanted from Mycroft in the first place, and his body contorts as a red electric flare of rage explodes within him at this realization, curling into the drug lust and despondency already ravaging his every cell and forcing his head back against his pillow as a hellish, ear-splitting scream tears itself from deep inside his chest. It is the scream of a man who has never felt weaker, more helpless, more afraid, more at the mercy of his own body, a man who has never hated anyone in his life more than he hates himself at that very instant—_

 _And, alone in the hall, the doctor working the graveyard shift runs a hand through his thinning hair and thanks god he's only a year and a half till retirement. He takes a moment to tilt his head forward, listening as Sherlock Holmes struggles against his bindings, screaming his brother's name over and over and talking hysterically to an empty room, then flips a page in the patient file he's holding and with a heavy sigh ticks off the box next to_ 'Hallucinations/schizoid behavior' _and checks his watch to note the time—_

Sherlock blinked, suddenly very aware of the fact that he'd stopped moving and that he was breathing far too quickly. His gaze flicked up to where he knew his mobile was sitting in the front room, then quickly to the door, and for a brief, spastic moment he wished for someone to call him and give him something, _anything_ , to do other than this. He'd take a pop-in from Mrs. Hudson; he'd take a case from Lestrade, even if it was just a two. A one. A zero; he'd help Lestrade clean his house to find his keys, if only the detective inspector would ask. He'd find a girl's lost rabbit; he'd put on a deerstalker and mug for the paparazzi; he'd treat Anderson to a pint and toast the man's brilliance in front of the whole of Scotland Yard if he had to. If only it were that simple. _If only..._

Sherlock closed his eyes. If only John would walk up the stairs right now and find him. If only John would return home, punch Sherlock in the face and scream at him for being so stupid, then throw the case and everything in it away and maybe punch Sherlock again, just for good measure.

Wouldn't that be wonderful.

But, no, because John wouldn't be home for hours and hours; John was on a _date_ , and the needle was already in Sherlock's hand.

Step five: _Position the needle's bevel upwards._ The words were burned into Sherlock's retinas. _Ease the needle into the vein at a shallow angle between 10 and 35 degrees to avoid penetrating the vein entirely._ Yes, of course, he knew all of this; if he was going to do it he should just get on with it already—

 _The needle should always point towards the heart so as to put the least amount of stress possible on the vein—_ Yes, yes, yes, he knew he knew he knew just do it come _ON—!_

A tiny prick. Sherlock's breath caught in his throat. Slowly, he pulled back slightly on the plunger, and a swirl of red flooded the syringe—

He loosened the makeshift tourniquet from his arm with his teeth—

_—It's his first stint in detox, and he's lying in a bed wrapped in rough, bleach-smelling sheets—_

But, oh, too late. Sherlock pressed the plunger down.

And the world exploded into color and energy.

The power of the transformation sizzled Sherlock's nerves, filling the backs of his eyes with liquid light and his every pore with tangible heat. Sherlock shuddered as a flood of warmth wormed its way through him, pulling a long, pleasured hiss from his throat. He was suddenly acutely aware of his body, of the undulating curve of his spine as he leant forward, of the smooth texture of plastic as he pulled the needle from his arm with a lazy tug, of the small bead of red welling in the crook of his elbow as he dipped his head towards it and suckled the injection site with a low moan. He was acutely aware of _everything_. There was the charred, earthy smell of fire wafting in from the fireplace, and beneath it, barely perceptible, the cloistered odor of natural gas— _Combustion is the sequence of exothermic chemical reactions between a fuel and an oxidant accompanied by the production of heat_ —There was the crunching of rubber on slick gravel as a car whizzed down Baker Street, clearly in a hurry _—The coefficient of kinetic friction between wet concrete and rubber is 0.30—_ There was the rapid pulsing of his heart, spilling through his ears like the rolling crescendo of a kettledrum. The firmness of the wooden chair beneath him _—Solid oak, mid-1980s manufacture, repaired twice—_ The droning hum of the refrigerator in the corner, the scratching of a mouse running inside the wall, _Muscardinus avellanarius—_

The list went on and on, a silver slipstream of knowledge gaining speed at an exponential rate, so fast that Sherlock stopped waiting for the words to catch up with the facts. Words were slow and cumbersome and unnecessary, clumsy and pathetically human; in this frenetic state he no longer required such a crutch. Now the flashes of insight shot across his brain unencumbered by the ugly weight of explanation, and god, what a total joy it was to let that go—that torpid, perfunctory obligation to _explain_ everything, to justify and repeat and slow down and go backwards and in circles to accommodate everyone else's tiny minds when all his mind ever really wanted to do was _move on._

A life confined—the awful cost of his brilliance.

But this, what Sherlock was experiencing now, this was knowledge without imposition. This was to simply _be_. It was wild liberation and Sherlock had only ever found it at the end of a needle, and perhaps there was something shameful in that but he didn't care; this was what he'd craved with such intensity and for so long he'd forgotten the pain of its missing wasn't an intrinsic part of his being. This was his true addiction, what no one else was ever able to understand. Because he wasn't addicted to _cocaine_. He wasn't addicted to _heroin_. He was addicted to his mind palace blown wide open—everything for the taking and the knowing and he didn't even have to look for it, it was all right here, at his fingertips, he didn't even have to try. He was addicted to his brain running a thousand kilometers an hour, synapses firing so quickly the speed of it made him giddy with bliss. He was addicted to intoxication on a ferocious scale, to power of the purest order. He was addicted to _freedom._

Sherlock gasped, gripping the seat of his solid oak mid-1980s twice-repaired chair with white-knuckled hands as the almost divine catharsis washed over him in a great glittering wave, clearing away years of bitter torment in an instant. Tears of ecstatic relief spilled down his cheeks.

This. This was perfection.

And the only thing Sherlock could do as tipped his head back and stared glassy-eyed into the hanging overhead light was wonder why he'd ever given this up, and why he'd ever worried, or doubted, ever, about anything. Because this was the whole universe coalesced in a millisecond into a single driving force, one white-hot thread of pure energy running straight through him, connecting him to everything at once. Sherlock laughed at the utter beauty of it, and breathy gulps of air slithered into his lungs like gaseous quicksilver. This was what he'd wanted.

There was absolutely nothing in the world to be afraid of now.

Sherlock took a breath, flexed a hand. Time to get up. Time to move.

And in the next moment he was in the front room, violin in one hand, bow in the other, scraping out some tune that barely reached his ears but that wasn't the point; it wasn't about the sound, it was about the _feel_ of the notes on his fingertips, barreling up his arms until they rattled about in his cranium like beans in a tin. Sherlock smiled at the sensation, felt briefly he could flip it over and read off the secrets of the universe on the underside, but a beat later he was somewhere new, in the kitchen, lining up severed fingers on a cutting board in order of freshness and spinning out the life histories of their previous owners as he watched a slow drip of hydrochloric acid eat away at the rancid cuticles. And another beat, and he was in his bedroom closet, pulling coats and jackets down from hangers as he scavenged through an endless stream of pockets for something, what was it, he didn't know, a slip of paper with the address of a suspected killer, the riding crop, a bagged handful of dirt from the latest crime scene; in time they too melted away and coalesced into the skull, and he found himself in the front room, turning it over and looking for the cigarettes John had once stashed away inside.

_John._

Sherlock took a breath, flexed a hand. The world tilted briefly upon its axis, and then skull was gone, and he was kneeling by the fireplace and staring head-on at the little Christmas tree and its soft pearlescent lights.

"I hate you," he felt himself say to the tree, dull noise that barely rose above the ringing in his ears. And yet John had bought the tree; John had brought it home and set it up and fought for its place in the flat. This was something that John had touched, something that John _loved_. Sherlock reached out, gently pressing one fingertip to the nearest bulb and soaking in the heat of its tiny filament.

"I hate you," he said again. It was suddenly very important that the tree understand. "I'm jealous of you," he clarified, because, as a plastic facsimile of a plant, the tree probably needed all the help it could get to understand what it was he was trying to say. But what _was_ he trying to say? Suddenly, Sherlock wasn't so sure, and in the next moment the thought that he could possibly be envious of this cheap holiday prop seemed laughable and wildly farfetched. Because this...this wasn't really about the tree, right? Wasn't there something else…some _one_ else? Something more important he'd truly been upset about? Sherlock could feel his mind turning into a dark and unexplored place—a place from which the drugs in his bloodstream were just barely able to steer him away.

Sherlock sighed, removing his finger from the bulb. Teetering on the balls of his heels, he ran a hand through his messy curls before falling back to rest in a sitting position against the side of John's chair. The slightly musty scent of the fabric seemed to thread itself around his body in warm embrace. "Oh, John," Sherlock murmured, and then once more, little more than a low, pleading whisper: "Oh, _John._ " And, still wavering on that knife's edge, his mind tipped towards that unexplored place again, then at last collided with it full force.

The panic struck Sherlock all at once. Later, he would liken the feeling to what he assumed it must be like to be hit by a rapidly moving vehicle: an instant of total shock and impact and breathless, adrenaline-fueled disorientation. Paranoia flooded Sherlock's system like a virulent disease, fanning out and transforming him until his every muscle was tensed in fear, and every noise, from his own panting to the pops and hisses of the fire to the rumblings of the traffic on Baker Street, fused into a sinister chant telling Sherlock that John Watson wasn't safe, was not safe, _was not safe._ Because John _couldn't_ be safe, not tonight when he was out on his own in the city, distracted by a cloying date and without Sherlock's eyes to keep watch for kidnappers and assassins and bombs and for Moriarty, who was lurking in every suspicious face and laughing in every shadow, just biding his time, waiting to strike.

Moriarty.

Cruel, calculating Jim Moriarty. Sherlock could see him now, a ferocious chimera with a man's face and the body of an enormous black spider, springing from his foul web to sink gnashing fangs deep into John's abdomen. It was a powerful bite, holding firmly even as John thrashed in pain and screamed Sherlock's name. And Sherlock couldn't help—the gun was cocked and in his hand but he couldn't shoot; he couldn't risk hitting John. Moriarty smiled at his hesitation—somehow the manic grin was apparent despite his fangs and the way they were plunged into John's flesh—and he said, "You have to choose, Sherlock." But because Sherlock didn't understand he didn't move, and the spider jaw clamped down a bit harder, sending a fresh stream of blood spurting from John's side and a tortured wail bursting from his lips.

"Stop it!" Sherlock shouted, and Moriarty laughed.

"You have to choose, Sherlock," he said again. "Either I kill him or you do, those are your only options. Now, be a good boy and _choose_."

Sherlock's stomach seemed to drop out of him. He did not want to make this choice, he _couldn't_ , and he cast his eyes about the natatorium (because they were at the pool, of course they were at the pool) in a desperate search for something that would help. But all there was was the scent of chlorine in his nose and the way his hands felt cold and clammy on the butt of the pistol, and John's pale, sickly face staring determinately forward as he slowly bled out onto the concrete ground. And then Moriarty laughed again, and the entire chamber echoed with his words.

"Oh, but Sherlock, he's already poisoned. See?" The spider-head shook John's limp body, and John gasped weakly as a new shot of venom surged through him. "See?" Moriarty said. "There's no escape, not now—he's already going to die. Better to finish him off quickly, don't you think? Put him out of his misery?" But still Sherlock hesitated, and Moriarty's eyes flashed warningly. "Now, now, you know you can't keep him forever," he teased, his sing-song voice matching the tempo of the _drip drip drip_ of John's blood falling to the ground. Why did that seem familiar, wondered Sherlock? Where had he heard that pattern before? The detective blinked, gasped for breath, tried and failed to steady his hands on the gun. Why couldn't he concentrate? Where was the _solution?_

"There is no solution," murmured Moriarty, and now Sherlock wasn't sure if the spider-mouth was speaking any longer, or if it was Moriarty's voice or his own or both he was hearing in his head. John, he noted frantically, had gone white as a sheet. "Really, sweetheart, I think our poor doctor's suffered long enough. Don't you? Like I said, you can't keep him forever. But you know that. You've always known that."

"No, no, no…" Sherlock breathed, and in final bout of desperation he trained the pistol at the narrow space between spider-Moriarty's eyes. But before he could pull the trigger all the lights of the natatorium shut off at once, and both John and his target were drowned in darkness. Nothing of the scene was left save the wavering blue light thrown off from the pool lights beneath the water, and even this at last faded to orange, transmuting slowly into the licking flames of the fireplace of 221B.

Sherlock blinked once, twice, and then, like a rubber band snapping back into place, the hallucination finally released its grip on reality. Mouth dry and eyes wide, Sherlock tore his gaze from the flames he'd been staring into and pulled himself onto unsteady feet, stumbling for his mobile he'd left sitting on the couch. But the lingering terror played havoc with his coordination, and his limbs felt rubbery and unnaturally long, capped by hands and feet grossly out of proportion with the rest of his body. It was a struggle to cross the room in such a state, a journey that at once seemed to take ages and no time at all, and just when he was beginning to frantically suspect he'd never make it, Sherlock's fingers curled around the cool plastic of the mobile and with a vertigo-inducing dive he tumbled onto the cushions of the couch.

**John.**

Sherlock typed the word automatically, then paused, unsure how to proceed. Moriarty and danger and death still swirled around him, and it seemed that John's very life depended solely upon the pocket of safe space Sherlock could generate here, four letters and the way they could call John back to him, and how that was so critically important, the most important thing in Sherlock's life. And then, somehow, the adrenaline coursing through Sherlock's body was shunted in a new direction by that point of focus, and the overwhelming need for John to return home sharpened itself into an overwhelming need for John himself.

 **John** , Sherlock typed again, blinking fast and working hard to keep his eyes focused on the tiny white screen and the letters he was attempting to pound into words. **John, please, I need you, I've done something terrible John I've made a mistake please John hurry—**

"You really think he'll come for you?"

Mycroft's voice.

Sherlock froze as panic exploded in his chest all over again, pressing out all room for air. It wasn't possible, and yet when Sherlock looked up, there he was, _Mycroft_ , sitting across from him at the other end of the couch, cruel and cold, clasping his black umbrella in his hands like a weapon.

"Get off my couch," Sherlock growled, clutching his mobile protectively to his chest. "Go away."

Mycroft's face seemed bizarrely serpentine in the low light. "You're a fool, Sherlock," he murmured.

"You're a hallucination," Sherlock countered.

"You're deluding yourself."

"I am not."

 _"You are!"_ Mycroft hissed, and somehow the distance between the two brothers evaporated in an instant, and Mycroft gripped the front of Sherlock's robe, forcing Sherlock to stare into his snarling face. "Yes you are!"

Sherlock whimpered, wanting to push Mycroft away, but found his arms frozen at his sides, utterly useless. "You think John's going to come for you, little brother?" Mycroft sneered, his eyes bright and dangerous. "Well, what do you think he's doing right now? _Think_ , Sherlock—what do you suppose he's doing right this very second?"

Sherlock's head was swimming; he could feel his heart racing in his chest, thudding hard against his ribcage. "I don't…I don't know—"

 _"LIAR!"_ shouted Mycroft, and he shook Sherlock by the shirt, flinging the detective onto his back and leaning over him with a contemptuous snarl. "I know you know, Sherlock. You might be able to lie your way around everyone else in London, but you can't lie to _me._ " Mycroft's eyes narrowed. "You know what he's doing." Sherlock shook his head, gasping for air, cringing as hot tears welled in his eyes. Moriarty and now this, Moriarty and now _this_ —he couldn't take it, it was too much—

"Stop, Mycroft, please…"

"No, Sherlock. You know what John's doing. To Mary. Say it."

"No…"

"Oh, but can't you _imagine_ it, Sherlock?!" bellowed Mycroft, and a horrendous, beastly smile twisted his features, making him appear more snake-like than ever. "Can't you imagine how he's touching her, running his hands over her, putting himself _inside_ her?!" He laughed, high and shrieking and in a way Sherlock had never heard Mycroft laugh before, because Mycroft never laughed at anything, ever. "Surely even _you_ must be able to imagine the way it feels to be handled like that, the sounds one must make. Ha! Isn't it disgusting, little brother? Isn't it just absolutely _vile?_ He's _FUCKING_ her, Sherlock! _Her! And not you!"_

Mycroft pressed his forehead into Sherlock's, a suddenly cleft tongue darting out from behind his white, pointed teeth. "And that's what eats you alive, isn't it?" he hissed, his voice low and terrible. " _That's_ why you can't stand it when you catch him eying a woman on the street, _that's_ why you're miserable when he goes on dates, _that's_ why you're enraged by the fact that he has two condoms in his wallet—because he goes to such great lengths to sleep with women, desperately chasing after any pretty face who'll bat an eye in his direction, and here _you_ are, right under his nose, and you'd do absolutely anything to please him; you'd throw yourself on your knees and suck his cock in the _street_ if you knew how, but you _DON'T_ , and you _NEVER WILL!"_

_"SHUT UP!"_

Sherlock launched himself from the sofa with a wild scream. He wanted to kill Mycroft—he was going to claw his brother's eyes out, rip that snake-like tongue from his throat; he was going to run him through with his own goddamn umbrella and watch his brother sputter and seize and choke to death on his own blood. But Mycroft was nowhere to be found, and Sherlock was swinging at nothing but air, and in his crazed desperation the detective spun about, legs tangling with one another and sending him crashing to the ground, hard, knocking the wind from his lungs.

"Nghhhh," he groaned, making a few clumsy efforts to push himself from the floor. But the energy of the fit had evaporated, and Sherlock's body seemed to ache with exhaustion as much as with the pain of impact. So he gave up, choosing instead to lie motionless with the rough sound of his own breathing in his ears and the feeling of the cool wood floor beneath the left half of his face. He supposed the hallucination had gone, but after what seemed like ages he heard footsteps to his left, and though Sherlock barely had the energy to turn his head, he did, and again found Mycroft standing just a few feet away. He was wearing a different suit now, the double-breasted pinstripe one he'd worn to Father's funeral, and even though that didn't make sense because Mycroft had been just fifteen when their father had died there he was wearing it all the same, and looking just as grim and sepulchral as the afternoon he'd tossed the handful of earth upon the coffin. Sherlock's mobile lay pinned between the floor and the tip of his umbrella. The detective groped feebly for it, but Mycroft only frowned in response, pressing down on the umbrella until the screen cracked.

"Just look at you," Mycroft spat, peering down at Sherlock with excoriating, knowing eyes. "I don't know which is more humiliating, the fact that you're thirty-four years old when you have your first orgasm, or the fact that you're so frightened by your feelings you have to pump yourself full of cocaine and heroin just so you can forget the fact you have them." He shook his unnervingly serpentine head. "But you _do_ have them, don't you, little brother? Feelings? _Urges_?" Mycroft's vertical slit pupils constricted mirthfully. "How absolutely terrifying." Sherlock ground his eyes shut, grimacing as the fresh wave of tears he'd been trying to hold back dropped painfully to the floor.

"Well," Mycroft sighed, his voice cool and hollow again, "you go ahead and send that text if you think he'll come." And with a flick of his wrist he sent Sherlock's mobile skittering across the floor towards him with the tip of his umbrella. "But do think, Sherlock; look at yourself and think what you're asking. You're a self-professed sociopath, a relapsed addict, socially and emotionally stunted, unapologetically manipulative, selfish, irritable, awkward, egocentric, and now, it appears, sexually repressed in the extreme." Mycroft crouched low, nailing Sherlock with a focused stare. "So how on god's earth, little brother, could someone like John Hamish Watson ever _come_ for _you?"_

The double-entendre cut through Sherlock like a hot blade. He hadn't cried outright since rehab, but he cried now; with that last damning blow Mycroft's apparition had sliced open his very innermost secrets, and thick, choking sobs racked his body in shameful response, consuming him entirely. He cried until he had no energy left, cried until his eyes were bloodshot, cried until he could feel his brain cloud over and grow fuzzy from overexertion. A part of Sherlock knew he was crashing—he could feel the effects of the cocaine subsiding, leaving the heroin to wrap itself around his heart, slowing it down. His mobile was just inches from his face, and Sherlock reached for it, his fingers fumbling stupidly on the cracked screen as he tried once more to send his message to John. Had he sent it? Had it gone through? Sherlock wasn't sure; his vision was frosting over now and maybe it didn't even matter…maybe if he could just float here, wrapped in silence, he'd be okay…

…Sherlock closed his eyes, spilling himself into the drug, and sighed. He was weightless, suspended, resting in perfect equilibrium…

And then, in the distance: "Poor Sherlock." The lilting words drifted through Sherlock's ears like a specter's wail. _"Pooooooor Sherlock…"_

With his final shred of strength Sherlock squeezed open a bleary eye, determined to meet this new devil head-on. He expected Moriarty again, or perhaps the Grim Reaper himself, but to Sherlock's surprise he was met instead with the face of a child, thin and pale and set with two wide grey eyes sparkling mischievously from behind a swath of dark curls. "Poor Sherlock," said the child again, and when he leant back Sherlock could see he was a young boy no more than five or six years old, sitting on his haunches and inspecting Sherlock closely as he lay sprawled upon his stomach on the floor. He was dressed in a schoolboy's uniform, with scuffed knees and muddy shoes, and on his head was a black felt tri-corner hat, and in his small white hands he clutched a plastic toy cutlass.

"What are you doing here?" Sherlock mumbled, words slurring against his numb lips.

"Searching for treasure," the boy whispered excitedly, and he pulled a folded sheet of paper from his pocket. "See?" He opened it and held it to Sherlock's face, revealing a looping landscape of marker and crayon. "I have a map."

But Sherlock could barely keep his eyes open. "You've…you've drawn that yourself," he breathed. It was the first thing he could think to say.

The boy frowned, thrusting his lower lip out in a defensive pout. "You sound like Mycroft," he huffed, stuffing the map back in his pocket. "Anyway, how do you know? You didn't even bother to look at it properly."

 _I didn't need to._ Sherlock's voice seemed very far away, echoing against the boundaries of a rapidly collapsing universe. Or were the words merely the dull flutterings of his lapsing heart? _I remember that map. I remember making it._

The boy peered at Sherlock intently, biting his lip as he struggled to decide whether or not this was true. He had freckles on his nose, Sherlock noticed, and almost smiled; he thought he'd deleted the fact that he'd had freckles as a child. Too much resemblance to Mycroft, who'd kept his through adulthood. "Did you ever find the treasure?" the boy finally asked, drawing his attention again.

 _I need to find John._ Sherlock's breathing was so shallow he could hardly feel his chest rising and falling. There was so little air… _I need…you need to find John for me._ The boy cocked his head to the side, looking at Sherlock questioningly.

"Is John the treasure?"

_I don't know. Maybe. Yes._

The boy fidgeted, his fingers tightening nervously around the hilt of his plastic sword. "That's a dangerous voyage," he murmured, casting his eyes about the darkness surrounding them. "Uncharted territory. And what if I can't find him in time?"

Sherlock didn't respond. The boy's clear eyes were wide and full of an emotion bizarre yet excruciatingly familiar…what was it? How could it make those orbs so bright and yet so incredibly sad? Entranced, Sherlock found he almost had the answer, only to lose it at the last moment as the word somehow curled, phonemes dancing from his outstretched fingers before slipping from his grasp like a slick fish into a vast sea. It was enough to make Sherlock weep in frustration, how much he wanted that word—it seemed like the answer to an impossibly great question. And yet he couldn't weep; here the boy was before him, still waiting for a response. _You'll have to be brave,_ Sherlock finally told him.

"Will…?" The boy's whisper died on his lips. He tried again, and the words fell out in a breathy rush, wrinkling his small brow as he spoke. "Will John be upset? Because I really, really, _really_ don't want John to be mad at me. I know I made a mistake, but please, _please_ don't let John be mad at me. _Please._ " His voice was incredibly small, but his eyes remained urgent, bright and earnest—twin Pole Stars shining in a tempest. And in that instant Sherlock pinned the answer, recognized the emotion in them he'd been struggling to identify. _The most complicated mysteries,_ something on the edge of his mind reminded him gently, _are so often the simplest, aren't they?_ For there it was, clear as day, right in front of Sherlock as it had been all along, and he looked up at the boy hovering above him whose eyes were simply overflowing with the very desperate, very visceral, very _human_ need to be liked.

To be loved.

 _I'll come with you,_ Sherlock told him. It seemed like the right thing to say. His heart was beating so very slowly now, and with each beat the world got a little smaller, a little redder, a little dimmer… _Okay? You have the map and I can navigate…we can find John if we work together, and then—_ a faint, barely perceptible heartbeat _—and then neither of us has to be afraid._

The boy thought for a moment, then nodded, apparently finding these acceptable terms. "Then it's tally ho!" he cried, clambering to his feet as he pointed the cutlass out towards an imperceptible horizon. He wiggled with childish excitement, then paused and turned hesitantly back to Sherlock, who was still lying splayed upon the ground. "But you'll need to take the pirate's oath before you can come along," he said solemnly. "All pirates have to take the pirate's oath. Do you…" His expressive eyes were suddenly pleading. "You haven't forgotten it, have you?"

But Sherlock shook his head. Some things, after all, can't be deleted; some things etch themselves onto the backs of one's retinas and stay.

The boy breathed a warm sigh of relief. "Good," he said. "Then say it with me." And he stood up proudly, squaring his shoulders and announcing to the dark unknown: "'My name is Sherlock Holmes, and I am a pirate, and I am bound to no law and fly no country's flag. For a pirate's loyalty lies with himself, his ship—'"

 _'—and the sea alone,'_ finished Sherlock, and then he closed his eyes, his last tear the first drop of a great and rolling wave that rose up from the darkness to meet him and then, very quietly, swallowed him whole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've always been intrigued by the conversation between John and Mycroft at the end of "A Scandal in Belgravia," specifically the bit where Mycroft reveals how Sherlock wanted to be a pirate as a child. The scene as a whole is poignant in its own right, but considering the fact that we're provided so little canon information concerning Sherlock's history, I was curious as to why the writers chose that time to suddenly reveal such a childhood predilection. And why, of all things, a pirate?
> 
> The scene stuck with me long after watching the episode, making me wonder, but the longer I thought about it the more I began to think, _Yeah, okay. I can see that._ I hope you like my interpretation!


	3. Time's Arrow

It was 1:39 am when John's mobile went off in his jacket pocket, and the doctor had his hand buried halfway underneath the hem of Mary's black velvet dress. The tinny tri-tone was barely audible above the sound of their combined panting, but there was no mistaking the jarring vibration that accompanied the ring—felt by them both, as John currently had Mary pinned against her bedroom wall. Suppressing an irritated groan, John squeezed his already shut eyes tighter, sucking harder at the spot he was working on Mary's neck and hoping wildly that if he just focused hard enough on what was happening here, right now—his lips on Mary's pulse point, his right hand fondling a supple breast as his left skillfully inched its way closer and closer to the heady warmth between her legs—they might be able to skip over the disruption completely and continue on as if it never happened.

But Mary— _Bless her, but damn, damn, damn!_ —pulled away, breaking contact with John's mouth. "Aren't you going to answer that?" she whispered hazily. And then, when John's hot breaths against her neck didn't carry an immediate response: "What if he needs you?"

Even their rather lascivious circumstances couldn't keep the nobler quarters of John's heart from deflating slightly at that. Because neither he nor Mary had even to say the name; of course it was Sherlock, who else would have the gall to ring at such an hour? And because, thought John, chest constricting in a great internal cringe, it wasn't _fair_ —for Christ's sake, no woman should have to compete with her boyfriend's _flatmate_ for attention. It just wasn't _right_ , regardless of whether or not that flatmate was the world's only consulting detective. The partner, thought John, should come first. The _romantic interest_ should come first. Good god, there were rules for these kinds of things! It was basic etiquette, primary school manners, and all this to say nothing of a whole host of unwritten social codes no one else seemed to have a great deal of trouble internalizing and following—why (And here the recurring question echoed miserably through John's brain yet again) _why_ was he fated to be tethered to Sherlock Holmes, the one person on the planet so brazenly oblivious to them all? The one person on earth who, without fail and almost invariably at the times of all others' greatest inconvenience, managed to outclass himself again and again in all categories of demanding, possessive, shamelessly interruptive behavior—?

"No."

"John?" Mary's voice lifted in surprise. She twisted a bit against the wall, angling her face to look at him closely as though she wasn't sure she'd heard him correctly. Her eyes darted to his jacket pocket and to his face again. "But, what if—?"

"I don't care." John sidled closer, slipping a knee between Mary's thighs, parting her legs and causing her to gasp. "Whatever it is he wants, I don't care. Not tonight." Something thrilled and beautiful blossomed in Mary's face at those words, and it made John remarkably happy to see it—the recognition that she was important to him, the knowledge that he could, in fact, choose her first. Wrapping her arms about John's head, she pulled him to the pale skin of her chest, which he immediately set to lavishing with a flurry of butterfly kisses.

"Naughty boy," she teased, but there was gratitude in the way she snaked a hand between their compressed bodies and cupped John's arousal firmly in her fingers, rolling her palm and using her remaining hand to cradle John's head to her chest as he moaned loudly in response. "Won't he be positively _furious_ you've abandoned him to consort with a commoner like me?" John chuckled, straightening up to look at her as a wolfish grin spread across his face.

"Despite all evidence to the contrary," he began, pausing to kiss Mary lightly, "I am not Sherlock Holmes' errand boy, and _you_ , Mary Morstan _—_ " he kissed her again, more deeply, and his roaming hand finally found purchase between her legs, sending a shiver running up her spine "—you are _not_ a commoner, believe me." And he kissed her a third time, bruisingly hard, and she gripped him tighter and in the next instant melted against him completely.

They ignored the second text tone. At the third, however, Mary laughed, pushing John off her slightly. They were on the bed now, Mary divested of her dress and John of his jacket and currently working on his belt buckle. Or at least trying to, as proficiently as his jittery fingers and Sherlock's intermittent interruptions would allow. "Persistent, isn't he?" Mary chuckled, turning her face halfway into the nearest pillow but keeping her glittering eyes focused on him. John grit his teeth.

"Just—" John swallowed, squaring his jaw in an attempt to preserve his dignity and feeling all the more emasculated for the effort. "Just let me turn that off." He rolled from Mary's mostly naked body, leaving her sweet warmth behind, and stretched out an arm for his jacket where it lay a few feet away upon the floor. He had no intention of reading or responding to any of the received messages, but the light of its display was painfully bright in the otherwise dim room, and as John's eyes adjusted he couldn't keep from casting a glance at the screen, and, consequently, at the first of the three texts he had received from Sherlock.

**John.**

The doctor paused, staring at the message, not knowing quite what to make of it. A single word, his own name, from Sherlock. How…odd. John frowned. For a moment his finger hovered above the screen as he debated turning the phone off, but niggling curiosity won out, and he quickly thumbed down to open the second text, which he noted had been sent closely after the first.

**John**

And that had John sitting bolt upright, eyes wide. Because regardless of mood or preoccupation, whether he was acting his most annoyingly verbose or his most icily reticent, Sherlock Holmes never, _ever_ , repeated himself. But here it was: two "Johns" in a row, and the latter lacking punctuation, a feature not so much odd as it was completely baffling. John opened the third text.

He was vaguely aware of Mary shifting upon the down comforter behind him as he read, and of her soft hands settling themselves on his arms as she drew close to him and peered at the screen over his shoulder. Neither one spoke, but, thought John later, there must have been some subconscious shift in his countenance—a stiffening and straightening of his back, perhaps, or a licking of his lower lip, or a kind of stony impassiveness working its way into his furrowed brow—that gave himself away, for by his third or fourth read through of the final message Mary sat back with a wistful sigh and drew the bed sheets up around her body, which now felt uncomfortably bare.

"You should go," she murmured. John spun halfway around, glancing distractedly from the mobile screen to her face, clearly torn. His mouth worked as if he was about to say something, but Mary shook her head to stop him. "It's okay," she said, and as if to give John proof offered him a small, rueful smile. "Really."

"But…" John's voice trailed away, and his eyes fell down to the screen again to rove over the befuddling texts once more. "You know how Sherlock can be," he finally said, staring hard at the words as if staring hard would force them into a more sensible arrangement. "He's so dramatic—and this isn't the first time this kind of thing has happened. He's called me home from work on the pretense of emergency just so I can retrieve something for him from another room, or open a window or make him tea or some similar nonsense, and it's completely inconvenient and makes me furious but for all his brilliance there's times when he just doesn't seem to be able to grasp what constitutes an actual crisis—"

"John." Mary held her hands up to silence him, and John snapped his mouth shut, suddenly painfully aware that he was rambling, and also of the fact that making excuses for Sherlock now probably wasn't the wisest of choices. He ventured a hesitant glance up to her, but his eyes had adjusted to the light of the mobile and in her face he could make out nothing more than a smudge of pale shadow.

"Mary—"

"John," she simultaneously interrupted him.

"Look, it's probably nothing—"

"It's never _nothing_ with Sherlock—"

"But I don't have to go—"

"But you _want_ to." The finality in Mary's tone ate up any excuse John had been set to give. "You want to, John," she repeated, more quietly, and suddenly John found he had nothing left to say, and that Mary's bedroom had become incredibly claustrophobic. Without another word, he rose from the bed and collected his jacket and shoes from the floor.

Mary followed him into the front room, dropping down into a kitchen chair as he pulled his coat on over his shoulders. "Call me when you get in?" she murmured. "Let me know you made it home okay, and that he's okay." She crossed her arms across her chest, but her expression was more melancholy than hurt. John nodded mutely. She should be furious, he thought, she should be fed up and hurling crockery and insults at him in a fit loud enough to rouse the neighbors. Instead, she just looked beautiful: lingerie and sweeping blonde hair and a face like an angel of perpetual suffering. It broke his heart to leave her.

"Look, I'm so sorry," he blurted, not knowing what else to say. "That is, I, well, I just wanted tonight to be…" He paused, trying to summon every inch of verbal dexterity at his command, and failing. "I just didn't want tonight to end up like this," he finished weakly, and he immediately hated himself for saying it, because if that didn't just sound pathetically awful John didn't know what did. He barely had the fortitude to look her in the face, but the masochist in him forced his eyes to meet hers.

"Do you want me to call you a cab?" was all she said.

God, that stung. It stung as John kissed Mary goodnight; it stung as he hurried down the stairs leading out of her building. It stung in spite of the cold wind that accosted him as he stepped into the street and it stung as he hunted down and hailed a cab on his own, because no, John did not want Mary to call him a cab; he did not want Mary to do one more nice thing for him tonight, or ever again, for that matter.

However, after spending a few pensive minutes watching a snowy London roll past the window, John's thoughts turned back to Sherlock, and his ire and self-loathing began to morph into something resembling worry. Frowning, setting aside the issue of Mary for the immediate time being, he pulled his phone from his pocket, examining Sherlock's texts once more.

**John.**

**John**

And lastly, the third and final message, which was now quickly causing a cold lump to solidify deep in John's stomach:

**John, please, I need you, I've done something terrible John I've made a mistake please John hurry**

It read as much less innocuous now that he wasn't attempting to understand it with a hard-on and a sexy, half-naked woman panting beneath him. In fact, thought John, feeling the first pins of panic press themselves into the base of his spine, nothing about this was right. The first two texts were repetitive, the latter two were lacking punctuation, all were missing Sherlock's trademark signature, and the third… John swallowed. The third text was disjointed, pleading, _fearful_ —he had received messages from Sherlock when the detective was being held at gunpoint that were far better composed, and far less emotional. No, _nothing_ about this was right. He pounded out a reply.

**What's wrong? Are you okay? —JW**

Five minutes, thought John. He'd give Sherlock five minutes to respond. He glanced nervously up at the cabbie, blithely absorbed in humming along to some god-awful Christmas tune pouring in over the radio, then back to his phone, hoping. But the minutes ticked by, each one shaving off a bit more of his patience and nerve as they came and went with no answer from Sherlock. One. Two. Three. Four, and John didn't wait for the fifth. Cursing lightly, he pressed call, and held the ringing receiver to his ear.

It took six unanswered rings before he was dumped to Sherlock's answering setup. _"Hello, you've reached the voice mail of Sherlock Holmes._ _If you are a potential client calling to schedule a consultation, please leave your name, contact information, and a description of your case in five sentences or fewer at the tone. Relevant facts only. Proper grammar only. Dull cases need not apply."_

John rang off, hissing in frustration. Not pausing to acknowledge the squirming discomfort in his chest that might, just might, have been fear, he quickly scrolled through his recent contacts until he found another number, and pressed call again.

"…Hello?" The answering voice was heavy with confusion and sleep.

"Mrs. Hudson," breathed the doctor, sinking back against the leather seat with a burst of relief. "It's me, John."

"John?" There was a momentary pause, and John imagined this was Mrs. Hudson blinking herself awake, turning to read the time off her bedside clock.

"Look, I'm so sorry to call this late," he said, "but I need you to do me a favor, if you could. I need you to go upstairs and check on Sherlock for me."

"Sherlock? Why? What's wrong?"

"I…" But how to explain? "I got a text from him," said John, choosing his words carefully. "I think he might be in trouble, or at least need help." He swallowed, craning his neck to look out the window and gauge his distance from Baker Street. "I'll be home in about twenty minutes, but I was hoping you could check on him now…" John's sentence trailed off as a disturbing thought occurred to him. "Actually, I don't even know if he's home."

"Oh, he's here, all right," said Mrs. Hudson, and John could hear soft noises in the background as the landlady rose from her bed. "I've been listening to him crash about all night, shouting his head off—"

"Shouting?"

"Yes, and I almost went up there myself, but I thought that if the two of you were having another row I should just keep…should just keep out of it…" Her voice dried up as she put two and two together, and John could almost see the look of confusion on her face give way to concern as she made the connection. "But…but if you…"

"I've been out all night, Mrs. Hudson," John affirmed quietly. He felt suddenly numb, as though he'd been doused with ice water.

"I'll go check on him at once," she breathed. "Just—" a muffled thump, and John could tell she had begun to hurry. "I'll call you right back."

"Wait—!" John called after her, for at least a dozen scenarios involving armed thugs and assassins and all varieties of dangerous assailants had materialized in his mind, but Mrs. Hudson had already hung up with a _–click-_.

 _"Shit_ ," hissed John, angrily stowing his mobile back in his coat as the cab rolled to a stop at a traffic light. There weren't many other cars on the road this late, and John fidgeted, for a brief moment considering ordering the cabbie to run the light, telling him that he'd pay double if they could make Baker Street in record time. But they'd come by a back route—and it was just his luck, thought John frantically, that he'd land himself the worst cabbie in all of London tonight of all nights—and he realized with sinking dismay that even driving at breakneck pace they were still a good fifteen minutes off.

_Shit._

And yet, as John stared helplessly out the window at two adjoining tenements and the little alley running between them, he realized with a jolt that he knew a shortcut home from this location. He'd have to run it, abandon the cab, but if he did it was no more than a few turns— _Straight, left, left, cross the street, hard right, hop the fence (watch for the dog), two streets east and then a final left for Baker Street_ —his brain supplied instantly, and John almost laughed, for he'd never in his life been so grateful for Sherlock's affinity for alleyways and side streets, and for the fact that he and the detective had chased, and _been_ chased, through them so often.

"Sorry for this," he called up the cabbie, and the poor man barely had time to glance back at John from the rear-view mirror before the doctor threw open his door, propelling himself out onto the street without further warning. "Here—" hastily, John tossed every note he had in his wallet into the car and slammed the door shut, turning on his heel. Distantly, he wondered if the fare would add up to too much or too little.

"Hey!" the cabbie shouted after him, ignoring the traffic light as it signaled green. _"Hey!_ Get back here!"

Too little, then. But John didn't turn back—he'd already slipped into military mode (Bombs, gunfire and sweltering sun and, more recently: crime, deductions, different bombs, and a pair of brilliant grey eyes, now potentially in danger), and everything in him narrowed and honed until there was nothing else on earth save putting one foot in front of the other, save getting home. He took off down the pavement at a sprint.

 

∞

 

"SHERLOCK! SHERLOCK, WAKE UP!"

The noise filtered down to him in a bluish haze. Obtrusive. Unwelcome. He would have turned his nose up at it if he could, but the shadows around him acted as a tempering force, holding him still. But there was no dulling the tone: Shrill cries and a burst of feathers as a freshly caught bird battered its wings against the bars of a cage. Desperate staccato screeches of a fleeing animal the moment it stumbled and the pursuing wolves bore down upon its throat. The images came to him because he hadn't the words to describe what he was hearing. He didn't, in fact, have any words at all. But then came a slow rustling, undercurrents of suspected motion, and he was just about to get well and truly annoyed when the shadows—thank god—drew in closer, wrapped themselves tightly around him, and then sequestered him deeper and darker until the almost-disturbance planed out against the horizon and everything went quiet and still once more.

But moments later another noise broke through. He waited expectantly for the shadows' rescue, but this time they loosened, instead of strengthened, their grip. At first he was frightened, naked-feeling and directionless without their warm barrier against whatever _this_ was, this thing reaching down and trying to pry him up from the safety of deep down here. But then the voice called again—And that's a word, he thought, _voice_ , he had that word now—and this time it seemed softer, more familiar. More words came to him to describe it. Deep. Masculine. Soothing. And almost a name, but not quite. And yet it was enough, what he had was enough, because now he was starting to change his mind...this might be a voice to come up for.

He could come to the surface for this voice.

The shadows coiled and quaked as he shook himself free of their weakening grasp. Their smooth movements belied irritation, and even though he was ignoring them now he could see at the periphery of his vision their fading tendrils as they attempted weak jabs upwards in a futile effort to recapture him.

But he was not going back, and his face turned to the surface, resolute. He wanted the voice. And so he swam, up and up and up, until there was nothing left but the voice and the great expanse of the surface and the inevitability of its breach.

 

∞

 

Cold.

Wet.

And a hand slapping him across the face, hard.

_"WAKE UP, YOU BLOODY IDIOT!"_

Sherlock's eyes snapped open and he gasped for breath, chest heaving and hands scrabbling at whatever they could find. For a moment he was convinced he was drowning, fallen overboard from a great wooden ship, yet however he twisted his nails scraped hard surfaces and suddenly they sunk into something soft and he gripped that softness for dear life, screaming, convulsing, because he couldn't see clearly and couldn't understand where he was or why, and it was only when John slapped him a second time that Sherlock realized it was John holding him, and all his frantic brain could think was _John_ , _his_ John: John, here for him, John, going to save him, John, John, Johnjohnjohnjohn—

_"SHERLOCK, STOP IT!"_

And John slapped him again, and Sherlock went limp. Gradually, he became aware of breathing filling his ears, ragged and loud, his own and someone else's…someone…

 _John,_ he moaned, feeling the phantom vibrations of his voice churning in his head though there were no sounds from his lips to match them. _John._ And still, when Sherlock opened his eyes again, John was there, filling his entire field of vision like a godsend. It was all Sherlock could see, John's face, and John's lips, and they were moving, trying to say something to him, but he couldn't see the words, all he could see was John, perfect, _perfect_ John, grounding him to the very earth, bringing him home…

"Sherlock? Sherlock, can you hear me?" The barrage of sounds flooded in all at once. "Oh god, Sherlock, you son of a bitch, come back, come back to me, _please_ …"

"John…I'm sorry, John…I'm sorry…I'm here…."

And at the sound of his voice John gasped Sherlock's name in relief, then released his body—which promptly crumpled in on itself.

It took Sherlock a sizable moment to piece together where he was, and how, and why. Slowly he tilted his head upwards, waiting until the hazy tendrils of his vision at last threaded together into the shape of a shower head high above him, and then into a continuous stream of water spilling from the spout and onto his chest, drenching his clothes and filling the bunches of fabric with tiny pools. Hungry for further sensory input, he opened his mouth, feeling the rivulets of water run from his soaked hair onto his tongue, but he didn't want to swallow them and so he simply let them run out again, down his chin and away. What a strange, all-over feeling that caused; it started in the pit of Sherlock's stomach and ran up his spine and then instinct finally kicked in and he shivered, and in the next instant realized he was cold. Freezing cold. The water was freezing cold.

Sherlock groaned, trying to move his body out from under the stream. But his limbs did little but make wet, sopping noises against the tile; he groped out, then up, and when his hand found the soap shelf he tried to pull himself to his feet but slipped on its slick surface almost instantly, collapsing once again in a tangled heap with his face just inches from the drain.

For one terrible, consuming moment, Sherlock wondered if this was going to be the rest of his life, trapped here and freezing in his bathroom shower, helpless, dumb, watching an endless vortex of water as it swirled down, down, all the way down into the sewers of London, into the Thames, into the sea….

_…Pirates sail the seas…_

But no, for in the next moment the water was shut off, and then strong arms wrapped themselves around him, scooping Sherlock from the icy tile and into something dry and warm. Sherlock clutched it close instinctively, feeling his fingers work into fabric fibers and realizing it was a towel, and at the same time that these were John's arms, and that he and John were slowly moving back and forth, back and forth, together, because John was cradling him in his lap and rocking him like a child on the bathroom floor.

"John," Sherlock murmured, and this time he could hear his voice firmly on his lips, not merely in his head. "I'm okay, John. Let me go. I'm okay." But John just gripped him tighter, and only then, as Sherlock felt a fresh wave of sobs rack John's body, did he realize John was crying.

"You idiot," John whispered hoarsely, pressing his face deep into Sherlock's sodden curls. "You _unbelievable_ idiot…"

"John…no…it's okay…"

 _"It's not okay!"_ screamed John, suddenly overcome, and he took Sherlock by the shoulders, roughly twisting him about so the two were face to face. "Don't you get it? You nearly overdosed, Sherlock! You nearly  _died!"_ He shook Sherlock to drive the point home. "What were you _thinking?_ What would I have done if I'd have come home tomorrow and found you dead, Sherlock, dead with a fucking needle stuck in your _fucking_ arm? _What would I have done then? Answer me!"_ But Sherlock didn't know what to say; he was too distracted by the way spittle was flying from John's mouth as he yelled, and how his eyes were red and bloodshot and overflowing with tears, and how John was still in his coat, and the tie tied with the half-Windsor, and how both were soaked from the cold spray of the shower.

"I…" But Sherlock couldn't finish the sentence; his mouth was too full of something heavy and grainy that felt uncomfortably like sand. His head rolled on his shoulders.

"Sherlock, look at me, stay with me." John clasped Sherlock's cheek, pressing their foreheads together. Through half-lidded eyes Sherlock could see fresh scratches criss-crossing John's face, torn skin and tiny dots of red welling up in little half-spheres— _John's blood,_ he realized; he'd scratched John and made him bleed… "Sherlock," John said again, and it was all Sherlock could do to steer his eyes back to John's, back to the blueness of John's irises and how they stood out so against the broken blood vessels surrounding them, hundreds, and Sherlock could see them, could count them all at once—

The door opened. Sherlock angled his head slightly at the sudden sound, just enough to take in the sight of Mrs. Hudson in her nighttime dress: spectacles, soft hair rollers and a terrycloth robe, and an expression pained enough to register even in his muddled state. Damp eyes behind her tortoiseshell-rimmed lenses—it seemed that she, too, had been crying. "Oh," she whimpered, taking in the sight of him and John upon the floor. She wrung her hands, turning her eyes up to John's and making a helpless flailing gesture at Sherlock. "John, his hands and feet, I didn't notice before—he's _bleeding_ , John."

Sherlock felt as John shifted around him, looking him over properly for what must have been the first time. "Cuts, yes," John murmured, his voice audibly strained. He didn't seem to be talking to anyone but himself. "Multiple cuts on his hands and feet from…from...I-I don't know what they're from—"

"John, look." And because Sherlock's eyes were still resting squarely on Mrs. Hudson in the doorway, he saw as she pointed out to the doctor the broken vanity mirror and the shards of glass littering the sink, stained along the occasional edge with smudges of red. The blood on the porcelain, the blood on the floor.

The smear of blood on the light switch.

"Jesus." John's voice was terribly small.

Mrs. Hudson's hand trembled slightly on the door handle. "I'll call the paramedics," she said finally, drawing in a rickety breath and gripping the brass tighter to quell the tremor. She stood just a little taller, as if trying to physically brace herself for the journey to the phone.

"No."

All eyes fell to Sherlock.

"Sherlock," breathed John, rearranging his arms and turning the shivering detective a bit so they were facing each other again. "You need to go."

" _No_." Sherlock put more force into the word this time, and even in their haziness his eyes glinted in protest.

"This isn't open for debate, Sherlock!"

"You can take care of me…"

"Are you hearing yourself?!" cried John, his voice finally cracking from stress. "This was an overdose, Sherlock, _do—you—understand?_ You need specialized care I can't give you here! You—you could still go into shock, or fall into a coma, and if that happened here there wouldn't be anything I could do on my own to save you in time—!"

"John…" Sherlock raised his hand, gently pressing his chilly fingers to John's lips to silence them, and John hushed. "John," he murmured again. " _Please_." And John just stared down at Sherlock, looking conflicted and utterly lost. At last he turned back up to Mrs. Hudson, who was still standing hesitantly at the door.

"Water," John croaked to her. "I-I'm going to need cool water to clean the cuts, and the antiseptic wash in the first-aid kit under the kitchen sink. Erm—" he ran his eyes shakily over Sherlock's trembling body once more, gathering himself as best he could. "Bandages, hydrogen peroxide, tweezers to remove the glass…"

Sherlock closed his eyes in relief, drawing in a deep, shuddering breath and letting the remainder of John's list of supplies wash over him in a warm wave. It was only after he heard the door close behind the landlady as she left to collect what John needed that he pulled himself back to reality, and to John's hand as it carefully swept a dark lock of hair from his forehead.

"You're a selfish bastard, you know that?" John grumbled, glaring down at him with an expression caught somewhere between exhaustion, fury, and helpless adoration. Sherlock said nothing, and nestled closer to the warm body holding him, splaying his white hand against John's chest and reveling in the feeling of the soft fabric of John's shirt beneath his fingertips. It was a subtle, almost impulsive gesture, and all at once the aura of the room became distinctly intimate. "Sherlock," murmured John. He kept his voice purposefully level, though he was still stroking the same lock of hair at the detective's brow. Their faces were mere inches apart. "I need you to tell me what you took. I can see the mark on your arm. Tell me what was in that needle, Sherlock."

"Cocaine…" The word slipped from Sherlock's mouth effortlessly. He wanted John to have it. He wanted John to have everything of his. "Cocaine and heroin, John, together…"

"Christ, Sherlock." John squeezed his eyes shut and groaned, slamming his head back into the glass splashguard they were both leaning against with such force it rattled in its metal runners. A few seconds of tense silence passed, and then John dug into his coat for something. "I'm sorry," he muttered.

Sherlock frowned, confused. "John…?"

"I'm sorry," John repeated, looking down at Sherlock as he said it, and at the same time pulling his mobile from his pocket. "I know you don't want to, but you need to go to hospital. You really do. You took… _shit_ , I can't believe you took those two _together_ , Jesus fucking Christ, Sherlock…" Sherlock's eyes widened.

"No, John," he mumbled, shaking his head as panic flooded his system. "Please don't. You can't. Don't make me go, no, no, nonononono…." But John ignored him, quickly unlocking his mobile screen to dial 999. " _Please_ ," Sherlock continued, clumsily gripping John's unresponsive face, writhing weakly against his body, trying to make John understand any way he could. "Don't send me there, John," he moaned, and the back of his throat began to burn with the promise of tears. "They'll keep me and they'll tie me to the bed and they won't let me out, and you don't understand what it's _like_ , John, it hurts so terribly and I won't have my violin and I won't have cases and I won't—" Sherlock's voice broke, and somehow in his twisting his face found John's "—and I won't have _you_ , John, they won't let me have you anymore, and I need you so desperately—"

And before he could stop himself, before he knew what he was doing, Sherlock smashed his lips against John's, hard, so hard that he cut his lip against John's tooth. But he kept pressing, because the blood tasted good and John tasted good, and he'd never kissed anyone in his life but now he was kissing John Watson, and it was perfect, god, it was what he'd wanted for ages and ages, ever since they'd met. He felt John's body stiffen beneath him, and heard John's mobile clatter to the floor, but only pressed into John all the harder, sucking, licking, moaning slightly, relenting only when he realized his lungs were burning for air. When at last he pulled away, it was just enough to rake in several long, ragged breaths that blew hot and humid against John's frozen face. "I'll go mad without you, John," he murmured between gulps of air. " _Please._ " And he leaned in again, but this time John placed his hands on Sherlock's chest, holding him back.

"No."

"John?" Sherlock tried to brush John's hands away with an ungainly nudge, but John pushed back harder.

" _No, Sherlock._ "

"But, John—"

 _"No!"_ And with a strangled cry John thrashed, throwing Sherlock to the ground as he scrambled to his feet. Sherlock yelped in surprise, but the cry was cut short as his forehead collided with the floor, sending a flare of pain rocketing sharply through his skull. It took a couple of seconds before the ache subsided enough for him open his eyes. When he did—and once the room had stopped spinning long enough for him to regain his bearings—he immediately spotted John, pressed against the opposite wall as far away from Sherlock as the room permitted, chest heaving and face white and altogether looking positively stricken.

 

∞

 

John didn't know what to say. His mind was racing at blistering speed, but his mouth just opened and closed wordlessly because there was nothing, absolutely _nothing,_ that could explain Sherlock's lips upon his own just now. It seemed likelier that little green men from Mars should beam to Earth and abduct him than for Sherlock _(Sherlock!)_ to initiate such a blatantly sexual act with _anyone_ , lest of all himself—but it had happened, sure enough; there was the little smudge of wetness left over on his lips for proof. John licked it away unthinkingly, then ground his nails into the wall as the weight of what he'd done began to settle upon him. What Sherlock, no, what they _both_ had just done.

What in the world had they just done?

"Y-y-you, you, y-you," he spluttered at Sherlock, who was still lying sprawled upon the ground where he'd landed, face to the floor, arms twisted up in grey towel. His hair had fallen about his face, but his eyes remained fixed on John. "Have you gone mad?" he finally hissed, feeling foolish and furious now that his brain had caught up to the rest of him. "Have you gone _completely_ mad? What was that?" John made a frantic gesture to the entire room, trying to sum up the bizarre interaction without referring to it directly. "What _was_ that, Sherlock!?" he pleaded, and then, desperate, sagging a bit against the wall and hoping wildly that any second Sherlock would leap to his feet to announce that this was all just a part of some perverse experiment: " _Please_ , Sherlock, for the love of god, tell me what's going on."

"I…I…" Sherlock's voice was rough and muted against the tile floor. For a moment he wrestled with the towel, trying unsuccessfully to free his arms. "I didn't…" he mumbled slowly, and John found himself leaning in closer to make out what he was saying. "I don't… John, I can't—"

But at that very second the door opened again and Mrs. Hudson swept inside, bearing in her arms the load of supplies John had requested. "I think this is all of it, John— _oh!"_ She drew back slightly, startled to find Sherlock strewn upon the ground and John at the far wall. "What happened?" she asked breathlessly. "John, is he alright? What's going on?"

"It's fine," John bit out, forcing himself to push his body from the wall and instantly missing its support. "Just…" He ran his hands through his hair, trying to come to grips with the situation. "Just bring those things to his room, will you? We need to get him in bed." Mrs. Hudson cast them both a worried look but then nodded, backing out of the doorway and then heading down the corridor to Sherlock's room.

Alone with Sherlock again, John knelt down, forcing himself to focus solely on the task at hand and not the inexplicable kiss—nor the way Sherlock's eyes seemed to now be following him with an unnerving depth. Carefully, he untangled Sherlock's limbs from the towel and coaxed him into a sitting position. "Put your arms around my neck," he instructed, and Sherlock weakly complied, and, after retrieving his mobile from the floor, John hoisted the detective into his arms and turned them out of the bathroom and into the hallway.

"Dizzy…" Sherlock murmured, pressing his face into John's chest.

"Keep your eyes closed," John answered tightly.

"I…I don't want to go to hospital, John…"

"I'm not taking you to the bleeding hospital, Sherlock!" John hissed in exasperation. "I'm taking you to bed!" And, in spite of everything, the words caused John's ears to turn slightly pink. _Damn_. "To your _own_ bed," he clarified quickly. "See?"

For they had just stepped into Sherlock's room, where Mrs. Hudson had deposited all the gathered supplies on the nightstand and just finished turning down the corner of Sherlock's crisp cotton sheets. "A couple of towels, if you would," John said to her, and she darted out of the room at once. When she returned, he had her lay them out along the length of the bed so he could deposit Sherlock upon them without drenching the bedding. "We've got to get these clothes off him," he whispered next, starting to work Sherlock's shirt up and off his torso. "It's been far too long already and the cold isn't doing him any favors."

It wound up a rather complicated task, seeing as Sherlock (despite being at least partially lucid throughout the ordeal) was unable to offer much in terms of holding his body upright. John was glad for the extra pair of hands as he and Mrs. Hudson worked together to strip him one article of sopping wet clothing at a time, then rub the bare portion of body down before re-clothing it in fresh pajamas retrieved from the detective's wardrobe. They made a good team, working silently in spite of the occasional groan or gasp from Sherlock as he was jostled. Still, when Mrs. Hudson glanced demurely aside as the detective's pants came down, John couldn't stifle a bitter chuckle.

"He went to Buckingham Palace in a sheet, Mrs. Hudson," he muttered. "I don't think he'll mind."

"All the same, John," she replied, her brisk tone just barely admonishing. She finished tying the drawstring around Sherlock's flannel trousers, then stood back as John shifted Sherlock onto his side and pulled the comforter over him, angling it slightly to steer clear of the detective's bloodied feet.

"I suppose I'll need to clean and bandage those now," said John, nodding to the wounds. He took a half step towards the supplies but then glanced back at Mrs. Hudson, who had gone curiously still, gripping her elbows and staring down at Sherlock with a closed expression. Sighing, John reached out to put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, only to retract it in surprise when she suddenly spun out of his reach and marched quickly for the door without so much as a single word.

"Mrs. Hudson?" John called after her. But she'd already thrown Sherlock's door wide open, stamping down the hallway as quickly as her slippered feet could carry her. John stumbled after her, managing to catch her by the arm just before she made it to the kitchen.

"Let me go!" she cried, making a wild attempt to free herself. But John knew emotional trauma when he saw it, and simply pulled her closer, shushing her and wrapping his arms tightly around her until she stopped struggling and slumped against his chest with a whimper. "Oh, John," she moaned, and there was a quiver in her voice that suggested tears were on their way. "Oh, John, he gave me such a _fright_."

"Ssh, it's all right," John murmured, as soothingly as his own rattled state could manage. "He's going to be all right now, Mrs. Hudson."

"I-I didn't know," she stammered. "When you called me I thought I was going to come up here and find him at another of those terrible experiments; he…he does talk to himself even when you're out, you know…"

"Ssh…"

"I had no idea he'd…that he'd been…" She couldn't seem to bring herself to say it. "And then when I opened the door I saw him lying there and I knew what had happened, but he wouldn't _wake up_ , John, he wouldn't wake up no matter what I did, and he was barely breathing, and all I could think was, oh god, please, don't let me lose him like this, _please_ …" Her words dissolved into sobs. John swallowed, rubbing small circles into her shoulders and staring blankly over the top of her head until her crying had run its course.

"I had no idea what to do," she said finally, sniffling and loosening herself from his arms just enough to wipe her eyes and readjust her glasses. "I know I should have called an ambulance, but as it was happening all I could think was that I needed to get him to wake up, and so I dragged him into the shower, and by the time you arrived…" Her sentence trailed off and she looked guiltily at John. "I suppose I panicked. I'm sorry."

John closed his eyes, resting his chin delicately on top of Mrs. Hudson's head for support. Later—maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after—when his nerves had calmed he didn't feel the overwhelming urge to scream and send his fist flying into the nearest wall, he would think of a kind way to tell Mrs. Hudson that putting an overdose victim into a cold shower was, in fact, extremely dangerous, and damn to hell whatever trite crime drama undoubtedly planted the idea in her head. He would tell her that, and then he would take her hand in his own, calmly explaining how cold water could send the person into shock, and that they were very, very lucky that tonight she hadn't sent Sherlock into cardiac arrest upon their bathroom floor. He would think of a way to say all of that with love and tact, in a way that would run the least risk of causing the landlady to burst into shameful, guilty tears. But, thought John, forcing his jaw to unclench as he stepped back to look her in the face, he couldn't say any of that to Mrs. Hudson now. Not when she was so fragile, and he felt so close to his wits end, and Sherlock— _Damn him!_ —still needed tending to.

"Don't be sorry, Mrs. Hudson," John said at last, focusing on the way he was still rubbing slow circles into her back to keep himself from shaking with sheer emotion. "You did everything you could. Thank you." He tried to bend his lips into a convincing smile but his face hadn't the wherewithal to comply.

Mrs. Hudson took another half step back, dabbing a final tear from her eye. "Is there anything more I can do?" she asked.

"Get some sleep."

"You're sure?" She glanced nervously over John's shoulder down the darkened hall that led to Sherlock's door, then back up to him. "You don't need anything?"

 _A double shot of whiskey and a pillow to scream into,_ John wanted to say, but all he said was, "I'm sure," and kissed her gently on the forehead. "I'll talk to you in the morning, yeah?"

Mrs. Hudson smiled. "You're a good man, John Watson," she whispered fiercely. "I'm lucky to have you—" her eyes darted pointedly towards Sherlock's room again, "—and so is he. You're the best thing that's ever happened to him. Don't you forget that." And then she patted his arm and turned for the stairs, refusing John any chance to deny it, though he wanted to, desperately.

Sherlock had fallen asleep by the time John returned to him.

Carefully, John slipped two fingers under his jaw, taking Sherlock's pulse before gently prying open each of his eyes to check that his pupils weren't constricted. Once he was convinced that Sherlock was indeed sleeping soundly—past the danger zone of coma and shock, and at least his heart felt a little lighter for that—John removed his jacket, rolled up his shirtsleeves, and pulled up a chair, and set about cleaning Sherlock's injuries.

The lacerations weren't as severe as he'd suspected. After using the tea towel and basin of water Mrs. Hudson had scrounged from the kitchen to squeeze a trickle of water along the soles of Sherlock's feet, John was relieved to find that the coagulated blood and dirt rinsed away to reveal just a few minor cuts, which he quickly checked for glass and then daubed with the antiseptic. After each foot was properly bandaged with gauze secured with medical tape, John turned his attention to Sherlock's hand.

He was halfway through checking the bloodied knuckles for glass when he realized that Sherlock's eyes were open and watching him.

"Hey there," John murmured, keeping his face neutral even though Sherlock's unwavering, silent gaze was making him distinctly uncomfortable in the wake of their kiss. But, John forcefully reminded himself, he wasn't thinking about _that_. "Do you feel sick at all?" he asked, focusing perhaps a bit too intently on his removal of a small silver shard from Sherlock's hand. "Nauseous?"

"Cold," Sherlock answered, and John felt a tremor run through his hand as he spoke.

"Well, just try to relax, I'm almost finished," John told him, and it was true, even though the remainder of the work took twice as long as it should've—those grey eyes were making him terribly clumsy, it seemed, and at one point John nearly upset the basin as he lowered it to the floor.

"John," Sherlock mumbled sleepily, a few minutes later. John glanced up at the detective just as he finished affixing the loose end of the last plaster to Sherlock's hand.

"Yeah?"

But Sherlock didn't seem to be listening. His half-lidded eyes had turned misty once again, and while they were turned upwards to a point on the ceiling his mind seemed somewhere else entirely. "You came for me," he finally whispered.

"Of course I did," said John.

"Of course you did," parroted Sherlock, sounding light years away. "Yes. I sent the boy after you. Of course."

John frowned. "You sent me a _text_ , Sherlock," he corrected, and then, speculatively: "What boy?"

 _"Me_ , John," said Sherlock. He'd turned his head and was talking into his pillow now; his eyes drooped heavily, nearly shut. "But young. Younger me." He paused, and a sudden, raspy laugh spilled from his lips. "My god, John," he breathed. _"Freckles._ Can you believe it? It was absolutely…absolutely _fascinating_ …" His sentence tapered and died. John shook his head, unable to make sense of the non sequitur.

"Just go to sleep, Sherlock," he said gently, rearranging himself in the chair and trying to make his own limbs as comfortable as possible. Sherlock made an unintelligible noise in response, snuggling deep into the bedding. His bandaged hand trembled slightly once more as he drew it near his face, and John noticed that his pale eyes were still partly open and staring straight at him. "I'm not going anywhere," John reassured them. "I'm not leaving you. Now sleep." And Sherlock seemed placated; within seconds his eyes slid shut, and hardly a minute later his breathing deepened and evened out into the telltale sign of slumber.

John sighed, toeing off his shoes and pulling his tie loose from his neck. He could feel the twinge in his leg as he moved— _Psychosomatic_ , he tried to remind himself, _mind over matter_ —but the muscle stiffness refused to yield. Woe be it to Sherlock if his limp returned over this, mused John; he'd wallop the detective over the head with his cane first chance he got if he was forced to dig it out of his closet come morning. The thought of that made him smile, and though John knew he ought to be keeping watchful vigil over Sherlock for at least another couple hours, his thoughts soon began to drift and scatter as he sleepily imagined chasing Sherlock through the flat, wielding his cane high above his head like a Scottish claymore. His smile deepened, and his eyes slid shut as the dream took hold: He was clad in a tartan kilt and bounding over tables and chairs after Sherlock, who was evading him gracefully but whom John knew couldn't keep the pace up forever. It took a long while, but at last the world's only consulting detective miscalculated—tripped himself up somehow—and John pivoted, leaping through the air just in time to bring his cane crashing down upon Sherlock's great swollen head.

"Gotcha!" he cried triumphantly, and Lestrade said, " _Finally_."

John looked up. The familiar trappings of 221B had vanished, inexplicably replaced by a set of great stone pillars and Gothic arches vaguely reminiscent of Westminster Abbey, but there was paneled glass, too, office-grade plasterboard and buzzing fluorescent lights, all threaded through with an adrenaline-fueled atmosphere that just _screamed_ New Scotland Yard. "Finally," Lestrade repeated, and he slowly lowered the massive chemistry textbook from which he'd been reciting, staring expectantly down at John from behind a podium (or was it an altar?) along with nearly several hundred members of the press corps John could feel poised at his back, cameras and recorders at the ready. All eyes seemed to be on him. "Well, get on with it then!" the D.I.-turned-vicar urged, rolling his eyes as his face split open into a wide grin, and he threw his arm out to indicate someone standing next to John, but the only person standing there was Sherlock.

Sherlock, draped in his white sheet, beaming down at John as though he couldn't be happier.

There was nothing else for it. John kissed him, and all the bulbs of the press snapped off in a frenzied succession of white flashes—the promise of tomorrow's tabloid headlines mixed with raucous cheers. "See that, what did I tell you? You owe me 20 quid now, Anderson!" the voice of Sally Donovan called out, floating somewhere over the merry din of congratulatory chatter and applause, and Mrs. Hudson blew her nose and Lestrade laughed and the last thing John remembered as he broke from the kiss and turned to face the crowd was the hazy image of Mycroft in the corner of the nearest pew, inspecting his boutonniere with bland disapproval and looking as though he couldn't quite believe he'd taken time out of his very busy, very important schedule and come halfway across London all to attend such an absolutely _ridiculous_ wedding.

 

∞

 

John awoke to an intense pain in his lower back. Groaning, slowly shedding layers of sleep and the last fragments of a dream he already couldn't recall, he shifted about to try and lessen the ache—and had to act fast to catch himself on the back of his chair to avoid slipping off the seat. He hung awkwardly like that for a moment, blinking in groggy disorientation and unable to remember why he'd fallen asleep in his clothes and a chair instead of his pajamas and his bed.

But then a soft, sleep-addled mumble from Sherlock's bed drew John's attention upwards, and everything rushed back to him: Mary. Sherlock. Cocaine and heroin. Sherlock. Blood and glass. Mrs. Hudson. Sherlock. Overdose. Sherlock. Shower. Sherlock.

Sherlock, Sherlock, Sherlock.

 _Kiss_.

John's stomach twisted into an uncomfortable knot. Wincing, he stood up, plunging the memory into the far recesses of his brain and frowning at the way his joints creaked as he straightened his back and padded to Sherlock's side. The detective was still safely sound asleep, though he'd tossed a bit and upset his comforter in his slumber. John righted it, then grabbed his mobile from the nightstand and returned to the chair, feeling scuzzy and old. He checked the time.

It was 5:32 am. That meant he'd slept for a little over 2 and a half hours—as well as, it appeared, straight through two missed calls from Mary, whom he'd completely forgotten to call back despite promising her he would. _Wonderful_. John huffed out a breath, staring bleakly at his phone until the screen went dim. _What a hellish night_ , he thought miserably. And now, well, now there was nothing left to do but to wait for morning and the inevitable fallout. As he turned the events of the past several hours over in his head, thoughts of the kiss drifted back to him in the darkness. John made an honest effort to shut them away, but every vivid, wet, heated, forceful—his brain spewed out a string of compromising adjectives before he could stop it—detail remained agonizingly clear in his mind's eye, coupled with the ghostly memory of Sherlock's breathless plea: _I need you so desperately, John…_

"Damn it all," John whispered. His head sank into his hands. "Damn, damn, damn."

A few feet away, Sherlock rolled over in his sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, a note of apology: I'm from the U.S., which means I write using (hopefully correct!) U.S. spelling and grammar. It also means I don't have a wide working knowledge of British colloquialisms. As a result, and since I don't have a Beta or a Brit-picker, I hope that nothing in this story seems especially jarring or culturally out-of-place. But, if one of you out there in the wide world of the Internet stumbles across such a mistake, please let me know! I'll make the change and credit you here in the chapter notes for your help! Thank you :)
> 
> (I'll be keeping the spelling and grammar AmE, not BrE, for the sake of my own sanity. However, if you spot a spelling or grammatical error in the text, tell me, and I'll credit you the same way!)


	4. Price's Theorem

The remnants of the broken mug fell to the bottom of the skip with a resonant crash.

John stepped back, inhaling deeply and relishing the way the chilly air stung his throat with each breath. Brushing his hands upon the front of his coat, he cast his listless eyes about the alleyway and then at last to the ground, where the fallen snow—so white and pristine the night before—had begun its inevitable afternoon thaw, mixing with the grime of the street until finally decomposing into little more than unpleasant-looking slush. Frowning slightly, John nudged a pile of it with his toe, watching as a black-flecked clump broke away and landed with a plop in a puddle by the edge of the bin.

Overhead, a low-flying airplane filled the sky with a cold drone.

John watched the tip of a wing pass over in the puddle's reflection. There was something fierce and unforgiving in its noise, he thought, something harsh in the way it was melding with the crisp light of the sun and falling down upon his head in an oppressive rush. Something almost panic-inducing. Something… _warlike._ Suppressing a shiver, John closed his eyes, all at once acutely aware of the nearly overpowering taste and smell of cigarette smoke wafting down from the second story of the fire escape. With it came awareness of another subtle yet equally uncomfortable sensation: the slow burn of a focused gaze, currently boring a hole into the back of his head. John sucked in a sharp breath. He held his ground long enough for the turbines' hum to fade into the street noise spilling down the alley and then made an abrupt about-face, his boots falling heavily upon the stairs as he propelled himself up them two at a time and then back into the building, slamming the service door hard behind him.

He didn't once look up. Sherlock, staring down from above as he readjusted his weight against the steel railing and set a newly lit fag securely between his teeth, was not surprised.                                                                                              

 

∞

 

The blood was the most pressing issue.       

That was what John decided, standing in the darkened sitting room at a bit past six in the morning and trying to rub the last stubborn grains of sleep from his eyes. He'd just completed a once-over of the flat, thoroughly checking all the rooms to make sure nothing egregious had been laid amiss. It was something he ought to have done before falling asleep, but there was no use now in kicking himself over the thought of what might have happened had a muddled Sherlock left some toxic experiment setting out or the gas at the hob running, for those things hadn't happened and there was enough to be getting on with as it was. At least the crippling spasms that had threatened his leg hours previously had gone, though all things considered, thought John, that was somewhat hollow consolation.

His attention fell back to the bloody footprints. Sherlock must have sliced his feet open repeatedly on the broken glass in the kitchen at various points throughout the night; it was the only way to account for the number of reddish-brown trails now criss-crossing the floors. John squinted, flipping on the nearest lamp to get a better look.

_I wonder…_

Turning slowly, John's eyes followed one trail as it led away from him and then intersected another several feet away. For a brief moment he felt he could sense the beginnings of a pattern, a series of events to be understood, and in the next instant thought to try and make a go of piecing it together; after all, by separating and following the tracks there was a very good chance he'd be able to figure out just what had gone on here in his absence—

But no. Ugh, _god_ no. _It's far too soon for that_ , he thought. The feelings were too fresh, too infuriating.

And too _much_ , which John came to realize soon after beginning to clean. For despite of the methodical numbness afforded him by the motion of his hands scrubbing back and forth across the linoleum, John wasn't long into the work before his thoughts began to wander, and the images that rose up to claim the void of his mind were almost too painful to entertain: Sherlock, shooting up in the kitchen, Sherlock, high, and the way he must have acted in that state, what he must have looked like and said, and the way he'd been when John had come bursting into the flat, panicked and out of breath, of Mrs. Hudson's frantic sobs and John's own hands pushing her out of the way to get to the pale limp form curled on the shower tiles, because _Oh my god Sherlock, don't be dead, don't be dead, don't be dead, I can't bear to lose you and you're all I have and don't you do this to me Sherlock Holmes, DON'T YOU DARE—_

John froze mid-scrub, squeezing his eyes shut to quell the sudden pressure building in his chest. Swaying gently on his hands and knees, he clutched the damp rag in his fist and slowly began breathing in and out, in and out, just the way he'd been taught to do shortly after returning home from Afghanistan, when his paranoia had been so extreme the smallest bump in the night was enough to trigger a full-blown panic attack. _In and out,_ he thought, gritting his teeth. _In and out, until it passes. Until you can move again._

It did pass, but it left a wave of fatigue in its wake; suddenly, the prospect of spending another hour removing Sherlock's blood from the floors with the odor of diluted bleach in his nose didn't seem appealing to John in the slightest. He hauled himself to his feet just in time to catch the early rays of late winter daybreak peeking through the windows.

His exhaustion tripled at the sight.

Still, it was only after he'd retrieved and forced his way through his usual sections of the morning paper and then conducted a last quick checkup on Sherlock— _Still sleeping, pulse and breathing stable, bandages dry and secure_ —that John collapsed into his armchair and finally, _finally_ , allowed himself to sleep.

He awoke several hours later with the with the weather report draped across his chest. Bright mid-morning sun was pouring into the flat, and John winked and sat up, feeling a tad out-of-sorts but at the same time blessedly refortified by the rest. Following a much-needed shower, he commenced the cleaning in batches, interspersing each chore with a short break—eggs and toast, a few minutes of telly, a bit of web-surfing—and slowly, in little concrete bursts, the flat fell back into order, and John's mood with it. The undercurrents of his malcontent didn't dry completely; John could feel the tension in his frame as he stretched his arm under the couch to retrieve Sherlock's mobile and subsequently cringed at the sizable crack that had manifested in the upper corner of its glass face _(Dropped? Knocked over? Thrown?);_ but those were things that would need to be worked out later, with Sherlock himself. At least, thought John, it was easier working in the daylight. In fact, everything felt easier to face at this hour, less nightmarish and more easily rationalized. Even Sherlock's kiss, which had all but stupefied John just hours before, now seemed rather harmless. Sure it had been untoward, but was it really something that couldn't be chalked up to a mixture of coke and heroin in the veins? What could it have been but an act of pure delusion? Besides, thought John, Sherlock probably wouldn't even remember it had happened. 

Bolstered by that conclusion, John set about returning Mary's calls. To his relief he found her forgiving and cheerful; by some divine miracle the pall his forced departure had cast over them the previous night had lifted, and after only a few minutes of amiable chatting she agreed to meet him the next afternoon for coffee. Even the loose thread of Mrs. Hudson resolved itself neatly—the landlady had done some web-surfing of her own, it seemed, and upon realizing her mistake in response to Sherlock's unconscious state the night before came up to 221B and threw her arms around John, sniffling and openly admitting she felt properly ashamed. John eased her grief with a hug and a few words of consolation, and even let her pop into the still sleeping detective's room to convince her that no harm had come of it and to assure her that Sherlock was indeed recovering nicely. And Mrs. Hudson seemed to rally; soon enough she was patting John's arm and inviting him downstairs for sandwiches, an offer John was more than happy to oblige.

It was only after returning to the flat that John's mood turned sickly once more. Because there was one last thing to take care of there, and he had been avoiding it for hours, ever since stumbling upon it early in the morning. John didn't look at it when he reentered the kitchen, instead making a beeline for the counter to pull down the percolator from the cupboard and then the tin of coffee behind it. It was awfully obvious stalling, and he did at least chastise himself for it, even as he measured out several cups of water in the pot and set it to work. The coffee began to drip, one drop, then another, then a steady stream. "Get on with it, Watson," John muttered aloud, watching it fall. And yet it wasn't until he had his finished mug in his hands that John finally scraped together the wherewithal to turn around and face what lay waiting for him on the kitchen table.

For all intents and purposes it looked like a normal leather journal case, A5 standard. It was finely made but modest in design, and had no obvious labels and no significant signs of wear. Its only embellishments were a simple tooling pattern around the seams and a neat brass clasp on the folding flap.

John forced himself to stare hard at it, and then on, to the bag of syringe filters, the lighter, the powders, the spoon and its sticky residue, and finally to the used needle, looking faintly sinister in the way it was lying discarded in the middle of the scene like the epicenter of a tiny earthquake. _This was where he did it_ , wondered John, and the thought filled him with an uncomfortable mixture of fear and awe. _Right here, in the flat, in our kitchen, on our table._ It was a surreal notion, almost unbelievable, and yet there was something oddly domestic about it, too, something furtive, something almost shy. Something very sad. John's gaze wavered back to the case. Where had Sherlock been keeping it? John was sure he'd never seen it before—had it really been somewhere in the flat all this time? If Lestrade… The memory of the D.I.'s false drugs bust the first night John had moved in to Baker Street fluttered to the surface of the doctor's mind. If Greg had stumbled upon this case then…well. It was a thought too ugly to contemplate.

It hadn't been found, in any matter, and now, because Sherlock was nothing if not notoriously messy and absent-minded with his belongings, John could only assume that the case had been purposely hidden—kept a secret. The mystery of it tantalized him; a thousand questions sprang instantly to mind. Why did Sherlock have it? How long had it been in his possession? And where had it come from? Perhaps a gift? It was certainly generic enough, thought John; it would have been a safe purchase for the odd uncle or distant relative who knew Sherlock only well enough to know he was intelligent and rather serious for his age. Or perhaps Sherlock had bought it for himself, precisely for the purpose of storing his drugs paraphernalia? And if so, when? The rather macabre image of a teenaged Sherlock browsing for something to suit his needs amongst the wares of some snobby Charing Cross stationary shop wavered into John's imagination, and he almost smiled. He'd never seen a picture of Sherlock in his younger years, but the detective must have been all arms and legs at that age, surely, and not yet grown into his new-come height; he would have looked quite a sight shuffling between racks of high-end pens and inkwells and notebooks with a scowl on his face and his hands stuffed in his pockets to hide his awkwardness. _And spots?_ John pursed his lips, thinking. It seemed ludicrous to imagine Sherlock with spots, and yet there must have been a time, once, when even the world's only consulting detective had had to deal with them; he'd borne the trials of puberty the same as everyone else. Slowly, a picture materialized in John's mind of a gangly young man, crowned with curls and garbed in poorly-fitting clothes, clumsy and self-conscious and too smart for his own good, and painfully lacking in the grand deportment he undoubtedly only adopted much later in recompense—that constant air of disaffected pride, the lithe gracefulness, the intense, commanding presence…

…the way his whole being would come alive in the dash and scrape of a chase, the way his every atom seemed to thrum in the face of danger and the excitement of a challenge, the gallant sweep of his coat and his bright, brilliant eyes shining like a tiger's in the dark London night—

John blinked, pulling himself back to his senses with a self-reproving grunt. _Don't make people into heroes, John,_ Sherlock's scolding words rumbled through his head. _Heroes don't exist._ _And if they did, I wouldn't be one of them._

John didn't know if he agreed with that or not. But he did understand in a way, because it wasn't fair to romanticize Sherlock's life, distorting him into some kind of mythic legend when in reality he was just a man—a great man, true—but still just a man. Sherlock was caricatured enough by the press and by the Yarders; surely John didn't need to be casting his lot in with them as well. Truth was in the _facts alone_ , wasn't that what Sherlock had taught him? Truth was in what could be observed directly. The doctor looked down at the case once more.

 _Handsome and practical_ , he concluded after a moment of consideration. _J_ _ust like Sherlock._ And, somehow, that was the most upsetting thought of all.

Three smart raps at the kitchen door tore John from his musings. Glancing up from the case, he blinked several times to wipe what he supposed was a rather desolate expression off his face before setting his mug on the table to answer. Poor Mrs. Hudson, he thought—and at the last moment it occurred to him to quickly push in all the table chairs so that the room would look at least marginally composed when she entered—it made him uncomfortable to think _she_ was still feeling uncomfortable, enough now to feel the need to knock instead of just entering directly as she usually did. "Mrs. Hudson," John called out, reaching to pull open the door with one hand and fussing with his shirt collar with the other, "there's no need to knock, everything's—"

The "fine" on the tip of John's tongue evaporated instantly. For standing in the doorway was not the sweet landlady John had been anticipating, but rather a tall and imposing man, draped in a heavy camel-colored greatcoat and a literal  _atmosphere_ of haughty composure.

"Hello, Dr. Watson," he said smoothly, and John glowered.

"This isn't a good time, Mycroft."

" _That—_ " Mycroft's hand shot out to prevent John from slamming the door in his face "—is exactly why I'm here." He took a deep breath through his nose, drawing out the beat of silence to allow the weight of his words to sink in fully. "Now," he said, "if you don't mind, I'd like to see my brother."

"How did you get in here?" John growled, but Mycroft only arched an entitled brow, and John frowned, running his eyes over Mycroft's gloved fingers as they firmly held the door ajar. Lambskin leather. Hand stitched. Probably purchased along with the coat, which was also almost certainly bespoke. John couldn't keep his lip from curling slightly—the lot probably cost a nearly half of what John made in a year.

A soft chuckle drew the doctor's attention back to Mycroft's face. "Nicely done, John," he said, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards in mild amusement. "Right on all counts, save one. The gloves are peccary, you see, not shearling." His indulgent smirk increased fractionally. "Still, how encouraging it is to know that living with Sherlock has at least _some_ positive side-effects." John pressed his lips together, forcing himself to breathe steadily as Mycroft's piercing eyes swept over him in return.

 _And just what are you observing, Mr. Holmes?_ he mused hotly, feeling the lines in his face deepen as anger bled into his system. _The bags under my eyes? The new grey hairs at my temples? I bet I look older, don't I—I bet I've aged whole years from last night alone. Is that what you're doing—adding up the ways your brother is slowly killing me? Maybe you've noticed the scratches he left on my face last night, or no, let met guess—the way I'm back to favoring my bad leg? Is that it? Maybe you can tell exactly what I'm thinking now. Can you do that, Mycroft? Can you tell I'm calling you a pompous git right to your fat fucking face?!_

Scowling, John's gaze flicked down the man analyzing him. Mycroft was dressed flawlessly as always, and yet, to John's great surprise and despite the fact that he was positively stewing, he was able to detect something faintly harried resting just beneath the man's polished exterior, something that tugged on the corners of his eyes and drew the smallest amount of color from his cheeks. _Stress_ , John realized. _Travel. Jet lag? No, not quite enough time for that, but he's come a long way in a hurry—_

"How'd you know to come?" John asked suddenly. "You were out of country last night. How'd you know Sherlock was in this mess?" Mycroft's grin stretched into something almost genuine.

"Now that really _is_ impressive," he drawled, tipping his head at John in glib praise. "Your deductive skills are improving tremendously, Doctor. Bravo." The complement dropped off into an expectant pause. But John kept his shoulders tense, and when at last it became clear that Mycroft wasn't crossing the threshold without a straight answer to John's question, he relented.

"I haven't bugged your flat, if that's what you're wondering," he sighed. "Trust me, I learned long ago that all such endeavors are little more than a waste of my time and the government's property. That said—" and here Mycroft's casual tone hardened just the slightest amount, "—I do like to keep a spare eye or two on Baker Street, and in light of recent events I'd say such surveillance is entirely justified." Mycroft's eyes flicked pointedly to his hand, still resting upon the door, and when they traveled back to meet John's own the doctor found they were filled with a measured determination that, while not exactly cold, was staggering in its intensity. "Now," he breathed, "as I said before, I am here to see my brother."

John closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation. "Look," he huffed, releasing the word on a lungful of air he hadn't realized he'd been holding, "I'm sorry, but I just don't think this is a good idea. He's not even awake at the moment, and after what happened last night he needs as much sleep as he can get—"

"Let him in, John."

The baritone growl caught John by surprise; he swerved at the sound, and was shocked find Sherlock standing just a few feet to his right. The detective had clearly just rolled from bed and had the disheveled appearance to prove it, for he was still in his night clothes, and his dark hair stuck out at odd ends to form a frizzled, slightly greasy halo around his wan face, which was stretched taut at every angle and dusted with the grungy shadow of a missed day's shave. But at least there was a ghosting of color in that face now that hadn't been there the night before, thought John; at least Sherlock was standing upright, lucid, able to walk and talk; at least the shakes and tremors of acute withdrawal had subsided.

At least Sherlock was _alive._

John wasn't sure how long he stood there staring, but at last Mycroft cleared his throat impatiently, reminding the doctor of his presence upon the landing. John threw the detective a sideways glance. "Are you sure, Sherlock?" he asked cautiously, automatically lowering his voice though of course there was no shielding the words from Mycroft at such proximity. He tried to communicate the next part with his eyes: _Because if you don't want to do this right now…_

"It's _fine_ ," Sherlock interjected sharply, cutting off John's mental probe, and barely spared John a second glance before striding forward and roughly yanking the door open himself. For one tense moment the flat fell deathly silent, all three men standing stock-still save the flaring of Sherlock's nostrils as he drew in several deep breaths and assessed his brother with an expression as contemptuous as it was closed. _Trying to keep from giving anything away_ , John supposed, and then Mycroft spoke.

"Good afternoon, Sherlock," he said. His tone was neither warm nor cold, but Sherlock's answering scowl suggested he was seriously considering spitting in his brother's face regardless.

"Tea, John," he finally grumbled, keeping his bright eyes fixed on Mycroft before turning on his heel and stalking to his favorite chair, the back of his dressing gown fluttering behind him as he went. John stared mutely after the undulating folds, wondering absently if the wounds on Sherlock's feet stung him when he walked and whether it was time yet for his bandages to be changed, and it wasn't until Sherlock had fallen against the plush leather in a heap of limbs and belabored sighs that his order fully registered in John's brain.

"I-I've already made coffee…" he stammered quickly, gesturing to the half-filled percolator that was still warming its remaining contents on the worktop. His line of sight was immediately blocked by Mycroft as the man swept across the threshold and into the flat.

"Tea sounds lovely, John, thank you," he said, pleasantly ignoring the irritated flash in John's eyes as he paused to shuck off his coat and gloves in a single fluid movement, deposit them in the flummoxed doctor's arms, and then start off again, his gleaming wingtips clicking smartly on the floorboards as he whisked himself to the nearest window and immediately set to peering down into the street with his hands clasped tightly behind his back.

John opened his mouth to protest—something about not being the bloody butler and if Sherlock and Mycroft wanted tea they could make it their own damn selves—but the tension brewing in the flat was already becoming markedly uncomfortable. So John said nothing, just hung Mycroft's belongings on the hook by the door and then stomped to the counter to put the kettle on. He did, however, entertain himself with the rather amusing mental image of Mycroft at home, standing in front of a full-length mirror and taking that coat on and off, on and off, practicing until he'd worked out the exact movements necessary for optimum pretentious effect, and the fantasy was so incredibly believable that John had at one point to bite his lip to stifle a chuckle.

Unfortunately, the situation John found in the sitting room when he reentered, tea service in hand, was anything but comical. In fact, in the couple minutes it had taken to boil the water and ready the tray, the mood between Sherlock and Mycroft had deteriorated from slightly cool to downright glacial. Cautiously glancing up at one brother, then over to the other, John set the tray down upon the table as softly as he could manage, then picked up Sherlock's cup and added two sugars before carrying it to the detective, whose thin fingers reached out to claim it from John's own slowly, and without so much as a word of thanks. Several very long minutes of silence ensued, with Mycroft still at the window, Sherlock staring motionlessly over the rim of his cup into apparent space, and John hovering uncertainly at the kitchen doors, not sure if he should stay or leave, or if either brother even remembered he was still there. Eventually, though— _f_ _inally—_ Mycroft sighed, and turned from the afternoon light to prepare his own cup. Sherlock's eyes swiveled sideways at the light tinkling of metal upon porcelain.

"So, what took you so long?" he asked, his voice laced with audible derision. "I thought you'd have shown up hours ago. Or are you becoming slow in your dotage?"

Mycroft tipped his head to the side, not looking up from the spoon he was currently using to stir a portion of milk into his tea. Carefully, almost thoughtfully, he set the spoon down, then crossed the room to John's chair and settled himself across from Sherlock with effortless poise. "I've been in Brussels," he explained lightly, taking a sip and watching Sherlock as Sherlock watched him. His cup landed in its saucer with a pointed _clink_. "Or couldn't you tell?"

For a fraction of a second John saw a storm erupt in Sherlock's eyes, a tumult of lightning and fury that threatened to spill over into the rest of his face. But by the next instant Sherlock had swept it away, and replaced it with a grin that was wry but otherwise benign. "Shame," he drawled, sighing in faux lamentation. "Mycroft Holmes, the man once considered the very heart of the British government, reduced to working the EU circuit at the behest of his betters. Sounds like your career's on a bit of a downward slope, brother mine."

"I was forced to return three days ahead of schedule, Sherlock," Mycroft pressed on, sidestepping the detective's jibe. "Not that I'd expect you to care, but that's several very important meetings I'm now going to miss, meetings where my presence was requested directly, and, I daresay, sorely needed."

Sherlock scoffed, flicking his hand in Mycroft's direction as if shooing away a bug. "Hardly my concern," he muttered.

"Perhaps not directly," admitted Mycroft, lowering his cup as for the first time that afternoon an element of true frigidity worked its way into his tone, "but they are my professional affairs, Sherlock, and if your actions should cause to draw me away from them, then I, and therefore they, do in fact become expressly _your concern_." Sherlock pursed his lips, but remained silent.

"This may not have occurred to you," Mycroft went on, "but there _are_ people in this world who give credence the consequences of their actions, myself included. And that means I take very seriously the responsibilities of my position, as well as the superiors to which I must hold myself accountable." He took a final sip of tea, then set his cup aside and folded his hands neatly in his lap. "The Prime Minister was not amused when I explained to him the reasons for my early return," he explained, enunciating each syllable carefully. "Not. At. All." Sherlock rolled his eyes and rearranged himself in his chair.

"Well, I'm sure your waistline thanks you, at the very least," he said, chuckling as a dark smirk wormed its way into his features. "Tell me, how much chocolate did customs let you ferry across the border this time?"

 _"Impudence,"_ hissed Mycroft, raising slightly in his seat, "is nothing but the refuge of a man who has squandered all superior defenses." Suddenly intensely vitriolic, he pinned Sherlock with a scathing glare. "Please, _brother mine,_ for your own sake if nothing else, don't seek to humiliate yourself yet further than you have already. It's a rather pathetic sight, I must admit."

The barb landed like a lightning strike, sucking the air from the room. John didn't think he'd ever seen Sherlock draw in upon himself quicker; all traces of mirth flew from his face at once, and though John didn't quite know how he managed it, somehow, without moving a muscle, Sherlock seemed abruptly half his original size, far too small for his pajamas and his robe and the weight of the accusation now looming in the air between himself and his sibling. Angling his face downward as though it were a physical thing needing avoiding, Sherlock clutched his tea, staring fixedly into the amber liquid as though he'd suddenly spotted something very interesting painted on the bottom of his cup.

"You are going to put a stop to this, Sherlock," Mycroft continued, leaning forward and striking John with the impression of a hawk zeroing in on weakened prey, a fearsome flash of beak and talons. "You are going to end it, _now_ , or I promise that any clemency you currently enjoy from me, any occasional advantage or little protections my position affords you, will cease. _Immediately_." Sherlock flinched at the word, as though it was a dart Mycroft had shot deep into his side. He didn't, however, look up, and he didn't respond. Mycroft settled back in his seat.

"Now, brother," he said, and suddenly his tone was calm and matter-of-fact once more, as though they were chatting about nothing more serious than the passing weather, "you are going to tell me _exactly_ what happened last night."

And Sherlock actually _whimpered._

John had to grip the doorframe to keep his knee from giving out beneath him. He'd never heard Sherlock make such a noise before, not ever—was there not a single thing on earth that hadn't been turned topsy-turvy in the past fifteen hours? What the _hell_ was going on? Sherlock looked physically sick, squirming slightly in his seat as though there was a knife stuck somewhere in his gut. _Pleading_ , John realized, his heart clenching painfully. _My god, he's actually_ pleading _with his brother not to tell._ John felt the knee-jerk impulse to protect Sherlock rear up powerfully in his chest at the sight, and yet for all its strength his legs remained strangely unresponsive, his jaw clenched tightly shut despite the fairly sizable piece of him that wanted nothing more than to grab Mycroft by the lapels of that filthily expensive three-piece suit and order him out of the flat for good, peccary gloves and all.

But John didn't, and the seconds continued to stretch painfully. "I…" said Sherlock slowly, hoarsely, still staring into the cold remnants of his tea. "I don't want you involving John in this, Mycroft."

"And why not?" countered Mycroft, taking the opportunity to once again pour venom into his tone. " _You_ most certainly did." Sherlock blanched at that, but at last something forceful crept back into his expression, and as his eyes swept back to meet his brother's John could read their silent message with vicious clarity: _Push me all you like, Mycroft, but I'll not say another word in front of him_.

John wasn't sure if he found that response uplifting or upsetting. For as encouraging as it was too see Sherlock exhibiting some of his usual brusqueness, there was also a very powerful part of him that wanted to hear Sherlock answer Mycroft's question. After all, _he_ , John Watson, had been the one who took care of Sherlock last night. _He'd_ bandaged the detective's injuries. _He'd_ watched over him as he slept. _He'd_ cleaned the flat in the morning. That responsibility had fallen on his own unlucky shoulders, and he'd done it, and he hadn't complained _._ He'd been a good doctor, a good flatmate. He'd been a good _friend_. So didn't Sherlock, at the very least, owe him an explanation?

After everything, thought John, didn't he _deserve_ one?

John barely had time to register the white-hot rage seeping in at the edges of his consciousness before Mycroft's voice was cutting into his inner monologue, scattering his thoughts.

"P-pardon?" he stuttered.

"I merely asked, John," repeated Mycroft, "if you wouldn't mind stepping out for a bit." He'd turned in his chair and was staring at John good-naturedly, but his tone was patronizing, a voice a parent might use to reign in an errant child. John felt his lips twist into an indignant scowl, and his eyes flicked up to Sherlock, who'd gone back to staring at his teacup.

"Actually, I—"

"Perhaps you have groceries to purchase?" Mycroft interrupted quickly, drawing John's attention again. "Dry cleaning to retrieve, a cash point to visit…?" He twirled his hand lazily as he spoke, stretching out the words with the kind of casual condescension indicative of a man who hadn't needed to tend to such pedestrian matters himself for quite some time. At last his face settled back into a mask of default stolidity. "I really think it would be for the best," he finished firmly.

"But…" John began, and then turned to the detective. "Sherlock?" But Sherlock seemed determined to avoid John's gaze.

"Just go, John," he murmured softly. "Please."

Perhaps it was the "please" that did it. John wasn't sure; all he knew was that at some point, somehow, his legs jerked back into working order, and his hands began fumbling to collect his shoes, his keys, his wallet, moving of what felt very much like their own accord. "All right then," he heard himself muttering, running a hand through his greying hair— _Greying because Sherlock is killing me,_ John remembered, almost wrathfully. And that sparked the rage once more, that old too-familiar feeling of Sherlock managing to shut him out of an apology and an explanation (and now his flat) all at once. But it stayed locked away, tamped down by the way John was already pulling his jacket on and heading down the stairs, all the while nodding his head as though this all made perfect sense, and by his lips, which kept mumbling, over and over again, "Fine. I'll go. Fine."

 

∞

 

The next hour slid by in a haze. The world was such a strange, strange place, John thought, so peculiar, and just look at all the people—on the Tube, in the streets, in the shops—all going about their day as though they hadn't a clue. Couldn't they sense something had shifted, had gone horribly awry in the course of the night? Couldn't they _tell,_ he wondered, marveling at the way the jeweler seemed so normal as he explained to John that the repairs to his watch wouldn't be ready for another week at least. Backed up due to the holidays, it seemed, and John felt his neck jerk in an automatic nod before he continued on, brushing past the few others crowding the shop, including a young woman closely inspecting an assortment of rings beneath the counter glass. Irritating. Didn't she know she was smudging the display by leaning in so close? Couldn't she see the boyfriend she'd dragged along wasn't the least bit interested in whatever stone or setting she was excitedly pointing to, that he kept checking the time on his mobile and glancing distractedly out to the traffic in the street? He couldn't stand her, clearly. Forget about a proposal; he'd probably leave her within the month.

And that was _irritating,_ thought John, wincing away from a too-bright sun and marching down the busy pavement with his chin buried deep into the collar of his coat. It was irritating that people couldn't see what was right in front of them. John frowned, pausing to wait for the light to change at an intersection alongside a man who was practically shouting into his phone something about stocks in a grating Northern accent. Jesus, didn't people know how _loud_ they were?

John's irritation lingered with him a long while, across several streets and in every step he took, in every breath drawn into his chest and then out once more. Loud, irritating, obnoxious people clogging a loud, irritating, obnoxious city, he thought, and all of them stumbling through life in a great haphazard mess. It was a miracle London didn't fly apart under the sheer force of their collective ignorance, brick by godforsaken brick.

And that particular thought was so unbelievably _Sherlockian_ that the surprise of it spewing from his own brain instead snapped John instantly from his funk, and he looked down, realizing with a start that he'd been trudging about Tesco for the past fifteen minutes without putting a single thing in his trolley. Glancing sheepishly about to make sure he hadn't been attracting stares, the doctor bit his lip, trying to think and finding it disturbingly difficult to recall much of anything from the past half hour. He hadn't been talking aloud to himself, had he? _Oh,_ _please, tell me I'm not going mental over this._

Either way, it was probably a sign he should be getting home. Quickly, John grabbed the nearest item off the nearest shelf— _A can of beans, always useful in a pinch_ —and headed for the till. At least Mycroft would be gone by the time he returned, he thought. Thank god for small miracles.

Except that Mycroft wasn't. Clambering out of the cab, reshuffling the garment bags in his arms (he'd gone ahead and picked up two of Sherlock's suits from the cleaner's on his way back), John stared at the sleek black car still parked outside their building in patent disbelief. Mycroft never remained at Baker Street for anything longer than twenty minutes. Ever. Hesitating at the foot of the doorstep, John's gaze darted up to the second story windows. Were Sherlock and Mycroft still talking up behind that curtained glass?

Would John not be allowed back inside if they were?

Now  _that_ was an irksome thought, and yet the gentleman in John (bashed and battered as he was) felt compelled to allow the Holmes brothers their privacy, if that was what they so required. Still, thought John, there was no way he was simply going to wait here on the pavement; huffing out a breath, he turned around and rapped hard upon the car door window.

"Hello? Anthea?" The glass was heavily tinted, preventing John from seeing inside. "Open up; I need you to give me a status update on your boss—"

The remainder of John's sentence faltered as the driver's door opened and a large, well-built man clad in a government-issue suit unfurled himself from the vehicle. "Mr. Holmes is traveling alone, today, Dr. Watson," the man explained stiffly, rounding the bonnet to face John directly. "His P.A. is attending other business."

There was something confrontational in the chauffeur's demeanor, John decided, but he refused to be intimidated, even if the man was a good eight inches taller than the doctor and the dark sunglasses he was sporting prevented John from seeing his eyes. "I see," John said finally. "Look, all I want to know is if I can—"

"Mr. Holmes has instructed me to inform you that you are free to enter your flat as soon as you return," the chauffeur interrupted.

"How magnanimous of him," John answered dryly, and the chauffeur's professionally blank expression soured, his offense so immediately apparent that John was forced to turn away, concealing an amused (and, admittedly, somewhat satisfied) smirk with a polite cough. _At least he's loyal_ , he mused, digging in his pocket for his keys while the man's insulted glare followed him to the door. _  
_

John had hardly made it three steps inside when, as if on cue, Mycroft rounded the stairs to meet him.

"Ah, there you are, John," he said, tugging his gloves into place and bustling forward to usher the doctor back towards the threshold. "Come along. We have important matters to discuss."

" _Mycroft!_ " John protested, managing, just barely, to buck the man's hand off his shoulder before he was backtracked out the door completely.

Mycroft dropped his arm, but he didn't apologize or back away, and his expression didn't waver, as if to suggest John should know better than to fight him. There was a fraction of a pause, and the water running in the pipes caught John's attention; his eyes flicked to the ceiling and then back to the man looming over him. "Sherlock is in the shower," Mycroft explained, taking the opportunity to crowd even closer into John's personal space and gently extract all the doctor's parcels from his hands, then hang them on the entryway hooks. "I was hoping you would indulge me in a short conversation while he's so occupied."

John set his jaw. Indulging Mycroft in anything at all sounded distinctly unpleasant at the moment, but Mycroft's tone had a steel tooth in it that brooked very little argument. "A _short_ conversation," John growled.

Mycroft smiled. "Of course," he agreed, and then his hand, much to John's chagrin, returned to his shoulder and steered him out the door.

 

∞

 

Mycroft's government cars always felt faintly claustrophobic to John. There was something in their structure—plush refinement encased in glossy steel, the only light dim and grey as it filtered through the bulletproof glass—that was too coffin-like for comfort. Climbing inside now, John shifted uncomfortably against the smooth leather interior, trying and failing to find a relaxing position and watching with a pang of envy as across from him Mycroft nestled contentedly into his seat, offering the militant chauffeur a nod as the door was shut behind him. He seemed so at home in this environment, wondered John, but of course this was Mycroft all over, wasn't it—contradictory, a seemingly impossible combination of hard and soft, deadly and genteel. Frowning at the thought, John ventured a glance outside, where he noticed the driver was remained standing on the pavement.

"We're staying here?" he asked, faintly surprised. Ducking his head to get a better look, he watched through the window as the chauffeur readjusted his earpiece through a lock of blond hair before assuming a sentry-like pose by the car door.

"I wanted to speak with you in private, John," answered Mycroft simply, smoothing a wrinkle from his lapel. "No Sherlock, and no staff. Just us." His expression was pleasant enough, but the edge in his tone put John on guard.

"All right then," he answered, keeping his own voice carefully neutral. His eyes swept up to Mycroft's, searching, but the older man's face gave nothing away. "Shoot."

"I suppose I should begin with a few words of praise," Mycroft started, offering John a mollifying smile that, unfortunately, didn't entirely reach his eyes. "Your assistance to my brother last night in his—" a brief hesitation, "—In his _hour of crisis_ , was paramount to his recovery. Truly."

It took several seconds of dense silence for John to realize that this was probably the closest thing to a thank-you Mycroft was liable to extend his way. "You're welcome," he ground out, keen to move the conversation along. And yet Mycroft said nothing more, just continued to dissect John with a calculating stare, and it wasn't long before the doctor was fidgeting in his seat, feeling increasingly like a live specimen trapped beneath a bell jar. His hand moved for the door. "Well, if that's everything…"

"You've never known Sherlock as a drugs user, have you, Dr. Watson?"

Mycroft's voice was sharp, shattering the silence like the crack of a whip. Slowly, John's hand fell back to his pocket, a grim weight settling in his stomach as it did. "No," he answered.

"And at no point in your friendship has he ever discussed that period of his life or those habits with you."

It wasn't a question. John swallowed, his throat suddenly uncomfortably dry. "No," he said quietly, taken aback by how much saying it aloud actually hurt." Never directly." Mycroft nodded.

"Then I believe it behooves me to inform you, John," he said, "though I'm aware you already in some sense know, that my brother is a man of addiction. Addicted to his work, addicted to his experiments, addicted to his cigarettes, addicted to his drugs—" He held up a hand to preemptively stifle the bubble of inquiry threatening to tumble from John's lips. "If you would simply listen for a moment, Doctor," he ordered. "These are matters of some significant importance." John's mouth snapped shut.

"I'm sure you've seen by now how Sherlock craves distraction," Mycroft said. "How he _needs_ it. That's why his current endeavors, both deductive and scientific, are so good for him; they keep that beast fed, keep it carefully contained. But, John, what you must know about my brother, what is so critical to understand at times like these, is that his primary addiction has always been—and will always be—his mind. If that falters, Doctor, he is lost."

Silence again, and now Mycroft was regarding John with an open expression that hinted that this was the time for questions. But John was at a loss as for what to do with the information Mycroft had just laid before him. He had a sense the man was leading him somewhere; perhaps casting another line would make his intentions clearer. "You, er, sound as if you're speaking from prior experience," John ventured.

"Sherlock was not what one would call an _easy_ child," murmured Mycroft, eyeing the doctor carefully. "His obsessions surfaced at an early age, and made him particularly difficult to raise."

John's brow knit together. "Obsessions…?"

Mycroft sighed. "Categorizing, Doctor," he explained. " _Collecting_. It may interest you to know that from the ages of five to twelve Sherlock kept everything he ever found, anything he deemed interesting or worthwhile, and then stored it all away in boxes and jars and cataloged it according to a system no one else, myself included, ever managed to decipher. Yet there _was_ _a system_ , for you could ask Sherlock for any object, or name any day or place, and he would find for you what he'd collected there in seconds. He had three whole rooms devoted to that collection by the end, John, as well as a spare pantry he'd commandeered from the cook. All this, of course, to say nothing of the lists—endless numbers of lists, and on every subject imaginable. Sherlock wrote them incessantly. The depth of detail of many was impressive to say the least."

There was no dramatic flourish at the end of Mycroft's exposition; nothing in his face or tone to suggest that anything he'd said was at all shocking or revelatory. And yet John felt the breath knocked from his lungs all the same, because the things Mycroft was telling him were so completely unexpected and because—and here John's diagnostic compulsion whirred to unwelcome life like a sharp kick to the gut—the behaviors Mycroft was describing sounded frighteningly like—

"Asperger's?"

The word fell from John's mouth before he could stop it, landing between him and Mycroft with so much weight John imagined he could hear the deadened _thud_ of it landing on the seat. A dim memory was stirring in the far reaches of the John's brain—green hills and crisp Dartmoor air and a thoughtless joke shared at Sherlock's expense between Greg and himself—that was causing a sticky, vaguely sour taste to claw its way up his throat. "Are…are you telling me that Sherlock is autistic?"

Mycroft shrugged. "I suspected some form of high-functioning autism from the start," he said. "Of course, in those days it wasn't something easily talked about or widely understood. Mother and Father especially were resistant to such… _upsetting_ topics of conversation."

John snorted, a portion of his feelings of unease withering instantly into hot contempt. _"Right,"_ he sneered. "Nothing a few smacks with the cane and a stern talking-to can't solve, eh?"

Mycroft shifted in his seat. "Something like that," he answered curtly, but his air of stoicism was betrayed by the way his shoulders tensed almost imperceptibly as he spoke. _Embarrassment,_ realized John, and for perhaps the first time since their initial meeting over a year and a half ago the doctor felt a pang of sympathy for the elder Holmes, for John knew as well as anyone what it was to endure a difficult family. Grudgingly, his anger began to siphon away. "Father was implacable on the matter until his death," Mycroft continued, sensing the shift in the atmosphere of the car. "Fortunately, in time, Mother proved more… _receptive_. I still had to plead with her for months, but eventually she agreed to take Sherlock to a specialist here in London, where he was subjected to a battery of psychological tests."

John swallowed hard. "And the results?"

" _Inconclusive_." The word rolled from Mycroft's tongue slowly, and he flashed John a bitter, knowing smile at the irony of it. "I doubt we'll ever know for sure now," he sighed, turning a bland eye out the tinted glass. "Of course, I believe the diagnosis had less to do with any true ambiguity than with Sherlock's own reticence; by that point he'd nearly stopped speaking altogether."

John was caught off guard. _Sherlock, stopped speaking?_ "Why?" he asked. Mycroft didn't answer, just continued his stare out the window. But the muscles in his jaw clenched, and suddenly John's confusion sharpened into alarm. "Mycroft," he said sternly, "tell me why—"

"Our mother disposed of his collection."

It wasn't the answer John had been expecting, but it was surprising all the same. "Yes," Mycroft continued, able to read John's stunned expression without looking up to see it. "She discarded it completely and without his knowledge while he was away at school. I would have put a stop to it, but I was away at my first year at Cambridge, and by the time I'd learned of what had happened it was too late. The damage had already been done." Mycroft's sober eyes tracked up to meet John's. "Sherlock's reaction to the loss was… _extreme._ "

"But  _why?"_ John spluttered, hands clenching at his sides."Why would your mum do something so awful? Surely she knew how much it meant to him! Why destroy it? Why would she do that to her own _son?"_

But Mycroft only shook his head, and John knew he'd at last reached a locked door, a point beyond which Mycroft—for whatever covert reason—would explain no further. Groaning, the doctor ran a hand through his hair, twisting frustratedly in his seat and overcome with the sudden churlish desire to kick out at something that could feel pain.

"What I will tell you, John," Mycroft offered, "is that Sherlock spoke barely a word after that point for nearly a year. It baffled every doctor he was thrust upon and drove Mother nearly mad, but he was committed to his silence. In the beginning I tried my best to reason with him, but I soon came to respect what he was doing." A surprisingly soft look settled across Mycroft's face. "I suspect it took him all that time to reconstruct what he'd lost," he murmured. John's eyebrows shot up.

"Reconstruct? The collection, you mean?"

"Yes, except that this time Sherlock built it in a far safer place, deep within the sanctity his mind." A coy smirk tugged at the corner of Mycroft's mouth. "I fear he's been adding to it ever since."

For a brief moment John couldn't for the life of him see what Mycroft was getting at. But then, in a flash, the pieces clicked into place. His eyes widened.

"His mind palace…" he whispered. "You-you're taking about his mind palace! Jesus Christ…"

"It's more than just a clever parlor trick, John," urged Mycroft, all at once severely serious. "It's a coping strategy, and a vital one. _Sherlock's mind is what he is_ , he will admit that freely, and I know for a fact that he considers his brain his most prized and hard-earned possession. Things being as they are, any risk to the balance between his body and his mind simply cannot be tolerated." There was a pointed pause, and Mycroft drew in a breath. "Do you understand?" he asked.

Did he understand? John felt more as though he was drowning under the weight of Mycroft's words. He did his best to keep his face steady, but something of the multitude of emotions roiling within him must have shone through, for like the first rays of sunlight wedging their way between the clouds of a dissipating storm Mycroft's intense aura broke, and he leaned forward slightly, touching a hand to John's shoulder.

"This information is not meant to burden you unduly, John," he explained, his voice solemn but no longer harsh. "But I feel you must be privy to it, if only so that you may understand to the best of your ability the nature of Sherlock's condition. You must understand how very crucial it is that he maintains stability of his mental constructs. The consequences of his failure to do so, as you witnessed firsthand last night, can be swift and catastrophic." He sat back, regarding John closely. "And so I ask you again, John, as a man of the law and as a brother: _Do you understand?"_

Was that sentiment? It seemed obvious but entirely impossible. And yet John felt too shell-shocked to care either way—let Mycroft keep his mysteries, if he must. "I understand," he croaked. He was suddenly desperate for air, to be out of the stifling car. "Is that everything?" he asked.

"There _is_ one last thing, John," said Mycroft. "Before you go." It was all John could do to bite back a scream of desperation.

"Yes?"

"Tell me, do you recall our conversation from this past spring, following that unfortunate Coventry affair?" Mycroft's eyes were stony in the dim light of the car. "I brought you the file of a dead woman. Remember her?"

Oh. Oh, yes. Naked flesh and a posh white chair. Red lipstick. Nails like knives. _Could you put something on please? Something, anything at all?_

_A napkin?_

"Irene Adler," said John. Mycroft sighed.

"Indeed," he murmured. "Now, do you remember what it was we discussed that afternoon?"

John bit his lip. Of course he remembered (how could he forget?), but something in Mycroft's contemplative expression was making him leery, for again John felt that the elder Holmes was leading the conversation down a strange, untested path. "Whether or not to conceal Adler's death from Sherlock," he answered slowly. Mycroft nodded once, his eyes never leaving John.

"Yes," he said. "And why, Doctor, did we discuss that particular issue?"

Now John's brain was really humming. "Because…because we didn't know if Sherlock would be hurt…we didn't know if Sherlock actually felt—" The doctor paused suddenly, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. "Exactly what are you getting at, Mycroft?"

Mycroft's face remained impassive. "John," he said, "do you remember what I asked you about Sherlock that afternoon? What I _specifically_ asked you?"

John closed his eyes, trying to think. Slowly, the memory rose to the surface. "You asked…you said he had the brain of a logician—"

"Of a philosopher."

"Right, of a _philosopher,_ or, or of a scientist, and then…and then…" John's eyes flew open. Suddenly, he knew all too well where Mycroft was leading him; mortified, he clapped a hand over his mouth.

"John?"

"You asked what we could deduce about his heart," breathed John through his fingers, horrified to feel a definite flush working its way up his collar. Was it possible that Mycroft knew about the kiss, that Sherlock had remembered what he'd done? Would he have told his brother if he had? That sort of openness didn't seem like typical Sherlock behavior—too personal, too private—but then again, snogging wasn't typical Sherlock behavior, either…

"And what did you say?" Mycroft's words ripped John back to attention.

"Huh?"

"What did you say, John, when I asked what we could deduce about Sherlock's heart?"

"I…said I didn't know."

Mycroft tilted his head carefully to the side, staring down at John along the narrow bridge of his nose. "Would you, perhaps, care to revise that statement now?" he asked. John balked. The flush had spread, was in his face now, his chest, his arms. His brain seemed on the verge of superheating.

"E-excuse me?"

Mycroft's entire body seemed to sharpen, folding in at the corners to form a precise point focused squarely at John. "Let me put it plainly, then," he murmured. "What can you, John Watson, deduce about the heart of Sherlock Holmes?"

And oh, that was it. He knew. He _knew_. Mycroft Holmes _knew. It didn't mean anything!_ John wanted to scream. _You've gotten it all wrong! Sherlock was high! He didn't know what he was doing!_ And yet Mycroft didn't relent, and slowly it dawned on John that if Mycroft Holmes, the man who ran a country from his office, the man who understood everything and everyone, was asking about a kiss that wasn't supposed to mean anything, then maybe, just maybe, it meant something after all.

But what? And to whom?

_What can you, John Watson, deduce about the heart of Sherlock Holmes?_

"I'm sure I don't know," whispered John. And it was the truth.

Mycroft's answering stare was trenchant. "Are you absolutely certain?" he asked.

"Yes."

Mycroft sighed, motioning to the door. "Very well," he said. "In that case, doctor, you may go."

John didn't need telling twice. He was out on the pavement in a heartbeat, and it took several seconds for him to connect the arched brow the chauffeur threw his way with the fact that he was sweating slightly, visibly flustered and panting in the wintry air as though he'd just run a mile. Fumbling with his keys, he was only faintly aware of the sound of the car revving to life and pulling away, leaving him alone. All John wanted now was to get inside, hole himself up in his room, and think. He needed a chance to clear his head; his whole self, body and mind, was simply _aching_ for it.

The moment John opened the front door, however, he knew at once that something was horribly, horribly wrong. That acrid smell was unmistakable, and could only mean one thing…

"No, no, no," he hissed, scooping the grocery and garment bags into his arms before tramping up the stairs as quickly as his legs could manage. Jesus, couldn't he catch a break? His heart was pounding in his chest by the time he reached the door, and he threw it open, his eyes falling instantly upon Sherlock draped supine upon the couch, showered and dressed and looking impeccable…

…and with a lit cigarette hanging nonchalantly from the corner of his mouth.

 _"Sherlock!"_ John cried. The bags slipped from his grasp to the floor, the can of beans sent rolling across the floorboards until it came to a stop at the foot of the side table. _"What the_ hell _do you think you're doing?!"_

Sherlock blinked open an eye, peering curiously at the doctor. "Trying to think, obviously," he muttered, sounding almost affronted that he should be forced to explain. "A task that would prove much easier if you could somehow refrain from clodding about the place like a total Neanderthal." He flicked an agitated glance to the dropped groceries and John's heavy boots before resuming his customary praying position, closing his eyes and craning his neck back to blow a leisurely stream of smoke from his nostrils.

But in an instant John was across the room and upon him, snatching the cigarette out from between the detective's unsuspecting lips. "Hey!" howled Sherlock, anger and annoyance twisting his face into a deep grimace, but John had already turned away, stalking to the kitchen with the smoking stub clenched in his fingers. "John…" growled Sherlock, leaping from the couch in pursuit. "John, stop this; don't be ridiculous. John! _John!"_

He rounded the kitchen doors just in time to watch the doctor snub the remains of his cigarette in the bottom of the sink. "John, why—"

"Why do you _think_ , Sherlock?!" bellowed John, turning up to face him with his fists balled at his sides. He was almost too furious to speak. There were too many questions flying through his head, all jostling for attention and space, that were causing his capacity for calm, rational behavior to fizzle into a practical nonentity. "Why are you smoking?" he barked at last. "You told me you quit! You _promised_ me!"

Sherlock shrugged. "Well, clearly I haven't," he answered simply. John grit his teeth.

"And just where did you get this?" He held up the cigarette butt. "I know for a fact you still have all the local vendors blackmailed into refusing to sell to you!" Sherlock sniffed, crossing his arms and glancing off to the side in a painfully obvious attempt to avoid the question. But John refused to let it go. "Answer me, Sherlock!"

"Mycroft gave them to me."

John blinked, not quite sure he'd heard correctly. _"What?"_

Sherlock just rolled his eyes, digging his hand into his trousers pocket. When he pulled it out again John saw he was holding a newly opened pack of cigarettes, the cellophane still clinging to one end. "See?" he said. "Mycroft left them for me. Said they'd be better than—" His mouth snapped shut and he bit his lip, catching himself just in time. The kitchen fell to uncomfortable silence. "Well," he muttered finally, fluttering a hand. "They're from Mycroft. Satisfied?" He stuffed the box back into his pocket.

John closed his eyes, forcing himself to breathe deeply and count to ten. Maybe, he thought, this wasn't so bad. After all, a couple boxes of cigarettes were better than cocaine, right? Better than heroin and shooting up whenever John wasn't around. If that's what it took to kick the urge before it ramped up into a true relapse, that's what it took. Yes. Sherlock would wean himself from hard drugs to cigarettes, from cigarettes to patches, and then, hopefully, stop cold turkey. Then it would be over. Right? Wasn't that better? Wouldn't that work? Would Mycroft have given Sherlock the cigarettes if it wouldn't work?

But John wasn't sure. He wasn't sure of anything anymore; all he knew was that the blood pounding in his ears was deafening, and that if Sherlock didn't get out of his sight as quickly as possible, objects were liable to start flying into walls.

"Do—not—smoke—in—this—building—Sherlock," he seethed, clipping his words in an effort to keep his simmering anger under control. "I mean it. _Don't._ I'll not have the flat reeking of cigarettes. If you have to smoke, you do it outside." He pointed out the kitchen window.

Sherlock's eyes tracked the gesture. "…On the fire escape?" he asked, incredulous.

"Sherlock, I don't care if you do it naked atop the Gherkin! Just don't do it in here! Got it?"

The detective's eyes flashed. For a moment it seemed he would protest, but in the end all he did was stomp across the kitchen to the window, throwing it open and making sure to make as much noise as possible along every step of the way. John watched as he swung his long legs over the sill, noting that the bandages around the detective's hand had been removed for the shower and not replaced. He hoped Sherlock had at least re-wrapped his feet beneath his socks and shoes.

"Don't you want your coat?" John grumbled, watching as Sherlock propelled himself out onto the steel landing. But Sherlock didn't respond, just turned about to throw the doctor a caustic glare before slamming the window shut in his face. John's temper boiled over.

"Fine then!" he screamed after him. "Do whatever the fuck you want! Freeze to death on the fire escape if it makes you happy! You've already nearly killed yourself once in the past 24 hours!" Consumed by rage, John's hand reached for the nearest object—the mug still sitting by the kettle he'd left for Sherlock the night before—and closed around it. "Why bother listening to _me?!"_ he roared. _"I_ only saved your life! Why show _me_ so much as a scrap of common courtesy?! Well _,_ FUCK YOU, SHERLOCK! _FUCK YOU!"_ And with that John sent the mug flying into the refrigerator, where it shattered on contact, littering the ground with ceramic bits. Sherlock, standing now with his back turned to the window as he knocked a fresh cigarette into his palm, didn't even flinch.

Back inside, John raked in lungfuls of air, watching through the glass as Sherlock calmly raised the fag to his lips, cupped a hand around the flame of his lighter and drew in a long, steady breath, held it for a moment, and then exhaled. "We are going to talk about this, Sherlock!" John shouted. "Don't for a moment think you're off the hook!" But his voice already sounded weak, the energy of the outburst draining from him as quickly as Sherlock's plume of smoke was dissipating into the cold afternoon air.

Stumbling backwards, John carded a shaking hand through his hair. He needed to sit down.

"We are going to talk about this," he repeated. His voice wasn't much more than a whisper now, the words not so much a promise of intent as they were an anchor, something to grip on to and to have in a moment when he had so little control of anything else. He hardly noticed as his body collapsed into the nearest chair. What he _did_ notice was a conspicuously cleared space on the kitchen table: Sherlock's leather case, and with it all its contents, had disappeared. Whether Mycroft had taken it or Sherlock had squirreled it away once more John found impossible to tell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God, I really love Mycroft. Don't you? Doesn't _everyone?_


	5. Turing Test, pt. 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh readers, the wait is over. The next installment of this story is here at last, and in my own defense I suppose I can say only that life simply got in the way of my writing these past few months. I won’t trouble you with further excuses; suffice it to say I’m very sorry for making all of you wait so long. 
> 
> p.s. There’s a point near the end of this chapter where I’ve included a footnote; when you come to it please do scroll down to the bottom and read the explanation. Hopefully it will clear up any potential confusion.
> 
> p.p.s. Bonus points to anyone who can catch the small (but obvious!) BBC Office reference, because it is the seminal mockumentary and because I love it dearly.

The shop bell tinkled overhead as John stepped hurriedly out of the angry afternoon sleet. He took a moment to brush the worst of the moisture from the fringe of his hair, then straightened, cracking his back and reveling in the musty, cozily cluttered hole-in-the-wall that was Mary's bookstore, a place that in the four months he'd been dating her had become for him almost like a second home.

Mary once told John she resented her father for dying and saddling her with it, what she called a dying trade in a stagnating economy. And yet she always managed to drum up a steady stream of customers, a feat accomplished by a magic combination of her gregarious personality and a rotating door of collaborative partnerships with local startups, all driven by a tenacious talent for business management which John, who possessed nothing of the sort, admired greatly and found undeniably attractive. In just the time he'd known her there had been book exchanges, coffee nights, a deal with a nearby children's daycare center, as well as a highly publicized Saturday night during which Morstan Books played host to an area band calling themselves Ten of Swords. John hadn't particularly cared for the music, and neither had Mary ("We're too old for this stuff, I suppose," she'd teased him as they'd sat listening), but the group turned out to have a surprisingly dedicated cult following, and Mary saw a definitive boost in sales in the following weeks.

Today, in spite of the foul weather, the bookstore was busier than John had ever seen it, for tomorrow was Christmas Eve Day, and the building was packed accordingly, shoppers of nearly all ages scrambling for last minute gifts.

Peeling off his dripping coat, John carefully began picking his way through the chaos. Precarious towers of books littered every surface save a narrow plot of trails through the shelves, and after several "Sorry's" and "Pardon me's" he at last made the final turn around the 'Home & Gardening' shelf and arrived at the back of the store, which was cleared just enough to reasonably accommodate a heavy wooden counter and an antique till. Behind these he finally spotted Mary, who was smiling at an elderly woman as she rang up her purchases and informing her that "That'll be eleven pounds sixty, Mrs. Levitt."

It was as the woman was gingerly searching her coin purse for exact change that Mary's eyes wandered ever so slightly, and caught sight of John watching her from across the aisle. She grinned warmly at him, mouthing 'Hi' over the crinkled top of Mrs. Levitt's poesy-patterned rain bonnet.

John winked back, slouching against the nearest bookshelf until Mary's customer was on her way. When at last the old woman had tottled off for the exit he pushed himself upright and slipped behind the bar, pecking Mary on the cheek and giving her a playful squeeze at the waist.

"Ooh, someone's in a good mood," she said, giggling and coyly batting away his fingers as they teased the hem of her shirt.

"Just glad to be off work," John answered.

"Long day?"

"Mm," he agreed. He backed up a step and held out his right leg towards her, where a large, amorphous stain ran from his ankle to nearly his knee. "See that? That's what happens when nine-year-old twins have stomach flu in your office." Mary shook her head in sympathy, biting her lip to stifle a laugh.

"Aw, poor thing," she crooned, smoothing her hands down his front.

"They were my first appointment of the day," huffed John. "Twins. Why _twins?"_ Mary pulled him in for a hug.

"I'll be closing up soon," she told him, pulling away to rearrange a stack of flyers on the counter. "Can you stay?" John nodded, and with a parting squeeze of her shoulder sidled out from behind the counter just as another customer slowly meandered his way to the register, intended purchases in hand.

John was leafing through an old bargain bin text on the Normandy invasion when Mary found him again, some forty-five minutes later.

"Closing time," she murmured happily, coming up from behind and looping her arms around his waist. The shop had emptied save for the two of them, and her head came to a rest against his shoulder, eyes lifting to peer out the display windows into the street. "Ugh, it's so ghastly out there. Seems I picked a poor day to travel."

"Well, what can you do," sighed John, tipping the history book back into the bin, leaning into her slightly. She hummed in agreement. For a moment they stood together in the muddled yellow light of the shop, content to watch the sleet pummel the windows as the warm, hazy scent of aging books and parchment dust swam about them. At last she broke their embrace for the door, where she fastened the deadbolts, pulled down the window gates, and flipped the _"Yes, we're open"_ sign to _"Sorry, we're closed."_ When she returned to him, swaying on sultry hips and with a wry smile curving her supple mouth, it was to twine her fingers in his, tugging him towards the back of the store where a door opened to the set of stairs that led to her flat.

"Come upstairs," she said. "You can help me pack."

 

∞

 

"There's still time, you know," she said softly, long after. "You can still come with me if you like."

They were lying sprawled together across the bed, naked limbs intertwined in darkness and the misty haze of post-sex closeness. All was still. Outside, in the hour that had elapsed, the sleet had given way to rain and then dried completely, leaving the quiet grey light of evening clouds to spill into the bedroom and a restive tranquility hanging in the air. In the next room, set out neatly by the door, lay Mary's coat and suitcase, and in her nearby purse a ticket for a train that would leave in two hours.

John hummed, closing his eyes. Mary's skin felt cool and smooth against his own. But when, spurred into action by a burst of playful energy, she flipped to her front, nestling into the open space between his torso and outstretched arm and murmured _"John, darling,"_ he opened his eyes to look down at her warm, inviting face. "Come with me," she repeated. "We have the room, and I know mum would love to meet you." She waggled her eyebrows, tracing her fingernails across his bare chest in long, tantalizing patterns. "Come on, everyone knows Slough is lovely this time of year…"

John laughed, then smiled mournfully. They had had this conversation several days before, but something in the plaintive way Mary bowed into his touch now made the sting of it more acute tonight. Not for the first time, the old flare of deep-seated shame rose up to wedge itself snugly between John's sense of duty and the plain fact that both he and Mary knew he had really, really, _really_ wanted to take this holiday.

"You know I want to," John told her, tucking a loose strand of hair behind Mary's ear. "But I can't leave him on his own. The first few days after a relapse are especially dangerous for recovering addicts. He needs supervision."

"Oh, I know," Mary sighed, suddenly wistful. "How is he?"

John shifted in the bedclothes, considering how to answer. "I don't know," he said. "He seems fine, and yet…" His voice trailed off, uncertain. Mary angled her face towards him.

"Do you think he's still using?"

John's stomach turned at the thought. "No," he said. "But he _is_ smoking again, like I told you, and more than I suspect he'd like me to think. It's almost as though…well…" But here John knew he had to tread carefully; there were certain elements of that night he hadn't shared with Mary.

Not that he hadn't intended to. Because it would have been so _easy_ , nestled next to her in that café booth after that horrid night of chaos, to simply turn to her and say, _"Oh yes, Mary, and by the way, you should know: Sherlock kissed me. Very odd business. Can't explain it a whit, but there you are."_ Then it would have been out and done, at the very least. After all, John hadn't done anything wrong, hadn't initiated the kiss and hadn't even participated once it was happening. Sherlock didn't remember doing it, John had firmly convinced himself, and Mycroft, whatever he knew or thought on the subject, could go to hell. _He_ , John Watson, had _not done anything wrong_.

So why, then, John wondered, did he still feel guilty? Why did thinking about that night, and about that moment in particular, make him feel somehow duplicitous, like a co-conspirator? Why, when the exact right moment to let Mary know about it arose, did he choose to say nothing, and let the conversation drift to other things, his golden opportunity gone forever?

Perhaps because lewd speculation thrived in the shadows of curious happenstance, and no one understood that better than "Confirmed bachelor" John Watson, a.k.a. "Shagging Sherlock Holmes into the carpet every night and all of Britain is convinced you're doing it" John Watson.

So no, Mary was not to know about the kiss. Not then, not now, and not ever. Christ, John thought, he did still have at least a _semblance_ of dignity.

"There's just something off about him now," John explained carefully. "It's been nearly a week now, and in all that time he hasn't left the flat once. He hardly eats, and he spends all his waking time grouchy and miserable. He's a terror to be around."

Mary chuckled. "No offense, sweetheart, but isn't that...you know... _normal?"_

"This is different," John insisted, scrunching up his mouth as he grasped for proper explanation and found none especially forthcoming. "I don't know how to explain it, he…he just…he won't _talk_ to me!"

If Mary looked at all concerned by that earnest confession, it was concern that manifested as little more than a thin shade of doubt in her eyes, which passed quickly and which John failed to notice in the deepening twilight. "Is he at least taking care of himself?" she asked quietly, keeping herself purposefully still on his chest.

"Besides sucking down a pack of cigarettes a day?" grumbled John. "I suppose. But he keeps acting like nothing's happened. Like nothing's changed. And it's eating him up inside; I can see the stress of it in his face. He tries to hide it, but I can tell."

"He's ashamed," said Mary simply.

John exhaled in frustration. "I know."

"And he's proud by nature, and more than a little vain. What you saw that night—it would be a blow to anyone's ego, but for him…"

John frowned. "Yeah, all right. But I'm his friend."

 _"Exactly,"_ said Mary. "You're his _friend._ Can't you see how that complicates things? He hates everyone, John; I'm fairly certain you're the only person he legitimately likes." She paused for a moment, and when she spoke again her voice was charged with subtlety. _"You're_ the only one he wants to impress," she said, and pressed a finger to his chest for emphasis.

John groaned, scrubbing a hand over his face. "He's completely closed off from me now," he grumbled. "And I hate it, Mary. I hate seeing him like that. It's like watching Harry go downhill all over again."

For a few minutes neither spoke, the only sounds in the room their own soft breathing and the solid, regular ticking of Mary's analog clock on the nightstand. "I don't know what to do," admitted John at last. His voice had fallen to a murmur. "He's suffering, and I want him to be okay. But I don't know what to do. What do I do?"

Mary's fingers resumed their tracing thin patterns along John's chest. But her eyes had long since fallen away from his, turned out the window and into the dim, unquiet evening. Frozen rain began to pelt the glass again. She didn't answer.

 

∞

 

John returned to 221B to find Sherlock sequestered the kitchen, safety goggles over his eyes and a bag full of bloody fingers in his hand.

"We're back to the fingers, I see," said John wryly, shucking off his coat at the door and dropping the post—a stack including several Christmas cards and an invitation for the both of them to Lestrade's New Year's party—on the table. Sherlock glanced up at him, pausing briefly from where he'd been rummaging through the lab setup to give John a good once-over.

"Saw Mary off then, did you?" he asked by way of response, and turned his attention down to his work again. John fidgeted, not entirely comfortable with the idea that Sherlock could read his sexual history in his belt buckle or shirt collar or however else he was piecing it together, and stuffed his hands in his pockets.

"You went to Bart's today?" he asked, eager to change the subject, and happy to see Sherlock had at last made it outdoors.

Sherlock nodded, dropping the bag of remains to the table where it landed with an unsavory squelch.

"Traffic pileup on the A201 yesterday," he muttered. "Most bodies were too mangled for proper identification. Molly had a surplus."

"Lovely," answered John, pulling a slight face at the relish with which Sherlock proceeded to tear into the plastic. "Lucky you. Just…" He watched as the detective extracted a particularly fat digit with a surgical forceps, and after a moment of close inspection began wiping it clean of formaldehyde and fluids with a cotton swab. "…Ugh. Just clean up after yourself, yeah?"

"Mm-hmm," said Sherlock, in a way that told John he'd stopped listening and hadn't heard a word the doctor had said. John rolled his eyes, then drifted to the front room, appetite sufficiently squashed for the time being.

The fingers were just one of a litany of ongoing experiments Sherlock had been cycling through since the _Incident_. Most were relatively harmless, others, John suspected, not so much. Something yellow and rancid-looking had been spilled on the breadbox, for example, the odor of which was not at all encouraging. Whatever it was (even Sherlock seemed rather doubtful), it had dried in the seams, and John had been forced to lever the top open with their only good paring knife, only to discover that large drops of the mysterious ooze had seeped through onto the all biscuit packaging within, necessitating their immediate disposal.

A broken formicarium and a microwave full of dessicated pig's eyes later—remembered not at all fondly as _"John! John! They're biting me! Get them_ off _, John!"_ and _"How else was I supposed to warm them?!"_ respectively—and the doctor was beginning pine for the days when all he had to worry about was finding the occasional human head stowed in the fridge _._

The cigarettes, too, were beginning to grate John's nerves. He'd been right in telling Mary Sherlock was easily working through a pack a day, and nearly a week in the habit showed no signs of abating. The nicotine made Sherlock almost unbearably jittery, curbing his already scant appetite, and the smell of smoke had all but permeated his clothes, hair, and skin. But at least, by what John had observed directly and by what he could glean from the deepening scuffs upon the windowsill, Sherlock was holding to his promise to not smoke inside the flat.

Small victories, the doctor had taken to reminding himself.

"Have you eaten?" John asked, wandering back into the kitchen some time later, when at last even the sight of a tableful of fingers couldn't overrule his growling stomach. Sherlock hummed something noncommittal, grasping for a nearby mug and waving it blindly in the doctor's direction. A shriveled teabag flopped around inside.

"…Right, so no," said John slowly, taking the cup and depositing it by the sink. "I'll make us something." Sherlock groaned in protest.

"How's the mold coming?" John asked over him, slipping into his cheeriest conversational tone. That morning before he'd left for the clinic, Sherlock had been engrossed in the task of tending to an expansive set of Petri dishes, each covered in a furry bed of mottled fungus.

"It's not," answered Sherlock tartly.

John was surprised. "Oh?"

"Cross-contaminated," grumbled the detective, the sting of the failure audible on his tongue. "I'll have to start new samples."

After a few more similarly abortive attempts at smalltalk John gave up trying to tease his surly flatmate into a better mood, and turned his full attention to the cupboards, searching the (admittedly) underwhelming pantry for something substantial enough to cobble into a meal. He couldn't have been making much noise; even so, it wasn't long before Sherlock set down his current severed finger and said, calmly but very pointedly: "John, you are dreadfully underfoot at the moment."

John grit his teeth, swallowing down a snappish retort. "I'll just call for takeaway then," he said, turning to face the detective with his hands on his hips. "What do you want? Chinese?"

Sherlock remained facing away from him, staring at the table. "No."

"Indian, then? That new vegetarian place is open now—"

_"No."_

"Well, maybe we can try—"

Sherlock spun about, eyes flashing. "I mean _'No'_ as in _'No, I don't want anything,'_ John," he snarled. "Don't be obtuse."

John squared his shoulders, folding his arms across his chest. "You need to eat," he said flatly.

"What I _need_ is peace and quiet so I can work—"

"Tea and cigarettes don't make meals, Sherlock!" cried John.

"Thank you, _mummy_ ," said the detective, scowling. "I hadn't realized. Now leave me be." He made a shooing motion with his hands, and turned back to his experiments.

"Fine," huffed John, exasperated. "I'll just order you a vindaloo."

Sherlock slammed his palms on the table. _"For the last time, John, I don't want—!"_

The sudden chime of a ringtone cut him off; both men swiveled to the spot where Sherlock's mobile sat buzzing on the table. For a moment Sherlock looked utterly torn, apparently caught somewhere between the desire to answer it and the impulse to crush the thing to pieces, but on the third ring he abruptly stood, tore off his nitrile gloves and scooped it up, smashing his finger to the screen.

"What?!" he barked into the receiver, and John could just make out the faint, tinny squeaks of whomever was speaking on the other end as Sherlock strode to the window in a cloud of agitation, wedging the phone between his ear and shoulder so he could throw it open and roughly clamber through. He fumbled in his pocket for a half finished pack of cigarettes as he went, knocking one into his palm.

John sighed, feeling more than slightly helpless in the mix. For a moment, he caught sight of the telltale point of golden glow bobbing from Sherlock's mouth as he spoke, and then turned away, resigning himself to shuffling through their collection of takeaway menus for the first Indian place that looked at least marginally palatable.

He was halfway through his order of lamb and rice and naan—and halfway through a sentence—when his phone was plucked deftly from his fingers.

"Hey!" he yelped, turning just in time to see Sherlock snap his mobile shut, ending the call.

"Your dinner will have to wait," said Sherlock, depositing John's phone back into his hands. "That was Lestrade; apparently there's been a double homicide in Camberwell. So put your coat on. We're leaving." Not waiting for John's reply, he swept to the door, throwing his own Belstaff around his shoulders.

 _"Now,_ John!" he urged, when the doctor didn't immediately follow. He pulled a set of leather gloves from his pocket, hurriedly tugging one on, then reached up for the doctor's coat and hurled it across the table to him. "Anderson's on duty tonight," he explained, "which means the evidence will be in absolute _ruins_ if we don't make a dash for it…"

But John remained still, guardedly watching as the detective crashed about the kitchen with all the fervor of a whirling dervish, stuffing his keys, wallet, mobile into his pockets. "I don't know if going is the best idea, Sherlock," he murmured at last.

"What are you talking about?" Sherlock answered distractedly, voice muffled around the remaining glove he was pulling into place with his teeth. "Of course you're going; I told Lestrade so—"

"No, Sherlock, I mean—"

"Or don't come, then, I'm not going to beg—"

"No, listen, what I mean is—"

"—because it's barely a four; I can handle things without you if that's what you prefer—"

"Sherlock, _LISTEN TO ME!"  
_

The words erupted from John's mouth far more shrilly than he intended, but at last Sherlock halted in his tracks and turned to face the doctor, albeit with an irritated wrinkle in his nose. _"What,_ John?" he asked, slightly breathless with both impatience and excitement. "What do you want? Why aren't you moving?"

John worried his lip before answering, twisting his coat in his hands. "Look," he said, and then stopped, cleared his throat, and began again. "Look. What I'm _trying_ to say is that I don't know if going tonight is the best idea for _you,_ Sherlock. For _you."_ His eyes latched on to his friend's. "Are you really okay? Because the truth of the matter is you haven't had a case since…well…" His sentence dissolved of its own accord, but the thick, yawning silence that followed filled in the gap easily enough: _Since "it" happened._

A rush of color flooded Sherlock's cheeks. _Embarrassment_ , John knew immediately, and it must have been, though in the next instant the detective stiffened, schooling his face into a mask of withering contempt and drawing himself up to his full height in a way that had John suddenly very acutely aware of each and every one of the six and a half inches Sherlock had on him.

 _"I-am-fine,"_ the detective ground out.

It felt as though a roiling thundercloud had blown into the kitchen—the hairs on the back of John's neck were standing on end—but the doctor was not deterred. "Are you?" he asked. "Honestly?"

There was the briefest flicker of movement in Sherlock's face then, something almost like a twitch. But he didn't—as John half expected—fly into a rage, nor did he break John's level gaze. "Are you coming or not?" he breathed. His voice had dropped into a dangerous octave; warning was etched into the planes of his face, threat into set of his shoulders. His stance remained as intimidating as ever.

"It's just…" John began to plead, and Sherlock's jaw clenched. The doctor relented. "Coming," he mumbled, and Sherlock nodded curtly, then stormed out the door. John had little choice but to follow in his wake.

 

∞

 

The cab ride into Southwark was, naturally, tense to the point of torture.

Sherlock, bundled in a black umbrage that put even their seasoned cabbie on edge, spent the duration jiggling his knee and looking furious, and broke the thick silence only to occasionally bark corrective instructions through the partition (the driver's haste in obliging, John strongly suspected, was driven far more by a healthy sense of self-preservation than any commitment to customer service). For his own part, John said nothing, thinking Sherlock's mood would lighten with a bit of space. Still, that niggling fear, the gut-churning suspicion that the detective might at any moment and at the slightest provocation lose his temper completely, never lessened, and when at last they arrived at their destination John was undeniably relieved, if only for a breath of fresh air and a break in the tension.

They had arrived at a tall, somber-looking council house in the north end of the borough, standing slick and grim after the day's pounding sleet. A handful of police cars situated about the cordoned off main entrance threw a silent cacophony of blue light up against the looming fronts of the surrounding buildings. John and Sherlock hastened past the blockades, up the steps, and into the lobby.

Lestrade met them at the lifts, looking, typically, just short of a night's sleep.

"Thanks for coming out," he said, quickly dismissing the constable he'd been speaking to when they entered. "Good to see you both."

"Skip the pleasantries, if you would, Lestrade," interjected Sherlock, ignoring the D.I.'s proffered hand. "Where are the bodies?"

"Er, third floor," answered Lestrade, startled into compliance by the detective's rudeness, and Sherlock brushed past him immediately, angrily jabbing his finger at the button to call the lift.

From behind his back, Lestrade shot John a knowing look. _One of those days, then, eh?_

John just frowned, hunching a little deeper into the collar of his coat.

 

∞

 

The crime scene was a grisly one.

"Their names are Thomas Stanton and Jane Beck-Stanton," said Lestrade, lifting the police tape strung across the hall and waving Sherlock and John into flat #260. The rooms within were crawling with the activity of a full forensics crew overseen by nearly a dozen officers, all bustling around two bodies sprawled at opposite ends of the main room. The woman lay prone on her back just outside the bedroom door, and reminded John faintly of Molly, as she was fit but plain, with mousy brown hair that had fallen across her face in whatever attack had ended her. Her front was spattered with blood, but she looked positively tidy compared to Stanton, who appeared to have been stabbed in the gut several times and who was lying sideways in a slick crimson pool.

"Seems like a domestic argument gone sour," said Lestrade, sidestepping a jumpsuit-clad young man bearing a floodlight and a tripod camera to usher them forward.

"Seems like?" asked John. "But not really?"

"She was living off a moderately-sized trust fund," explained the D.I., inclining his head towards the woman's body, "which he—" he jerked his thumb at Stanton "—was set to inherit in full if she died." He heaved a sigh. "They were just married two months ago."

"Obvious," muttered Sherlock, glancing about, taking in the room. Lestrade shrugged.

"Yeah, well, seems like he thought it was a good idea. Meant to do her in with nitrazepam, I suspect—there's an open bottle of it by the bed we think he tried to force her to swallow—but it looks like she overpowered him, got a hold of the knife. Anyway, it's fairly textbook from there: she stabs him, he strangles her, then bleeds out; time of death for both was, oh—" he glanced at his watch "—four hours now, give or take. The neighbors downstairs heard the noise and gave us a ring."

Sherlock waved that information away and crouched low, peering closely at Stanton. John followed his lead, wondering what, if anything, the detective was seeing. The murders seemed as straightforward as Lestrade had explained to them, and judging by the cloudy film that had crystallized over Stanton's eyes, the time of death sounded right. Stanton's shirt had been sliced open in three very distinctive places, and was soaked with blood, and as John's eyes traveled down Stanton's arms _(Freckles, tiger tattoo)_ he found his hands and fingers had also been cut, appropriate for a man who'd died trying to shield himself from the jabs of a blade.

"Where's the knife?" asked Sherlock, apparently having reached the same conclusions as John.

"Over here," answered Lestrade. "Forensics is itching to bag it but I told them to hold off until you could have a look…"

Sherlock had just risen to follow the D.I. when Sally Donovan marched in from the bedroom. Her face twisted in disgust when she spotted the detective.

"I thought I heard your voice, Freak," she said. "Why are you here?"

"Play nice, Sally," warned Lestrade, stepping between Sherlock and the sergeant. "He's here because I asked him here, and because I'd like not to be working another Christmas Eve, if I can help it. The sooner we can wrap this up the better."

"We don't need him, Greg—"

"You don't have the authority or the mental capacity to make that determination, Donovan," snapped Sherlock over Lestrade's shoulder, silencing her. "Now, if you would, do run off and let the adults work." Sally's face nearly purpled in rage, but a pointed look from Lestrade forced a stopper on her temper, and, rigid as a pole, she stomped away towards the crew now beginning to trundle Jane into a body bag.

"Can you not insult them, Sherlock?" said Lestrade wearily, once she had gone. "Please? They're just doing their job."

"Hardly," muttered the detective, and then, drawing in an agitated breath as if to cleanse himself of Donovan's presence: "You told me on the phone there was a note."

"Er, right. Found it in the bedroom. Clearly forged."

Sherlock's eyes narrowed. "You did not tell me you thought it was a fake," he said, voice low and now very obviously put out. "One suicide note, two bodies. That's the only reason I came." The D.I. looked guilty.

"Yeah, but here's the thing—"

"I am not a fact-checker, Lestrade!" hissed Sherlock, throwing his arms wide. "Honestly, how lazy are you lot?"

Lestrade huffed at the insult, but his expression remained pleading. "Please, Sherlock," he said. "I can't tell you how badly we're backlogged with cases right now. No, nothing you can help with," he said quickly, as Sherlock opened his mouth to interrupt. "Just the usual holiday crazies, you know?" He sighed. "Look, I really need this one to be open and shut. Go and have a look at the note. If everything checks out we can make this a quick solve I'll have one less question mark on my mind, yeah?"

"One fewer," muttered Sherlock archly, unmoved. But Lestrade stood his ground.

"Is it handwritten?" Sherlock asked at last.

"Typed," answered Lestrade. Sherlock scoffed.

"Fools."

"I know," agreed Lestrade, "but at least he forced her to sign it. Please, Sherlock?"

The detective sighed. "Fine. But only because your team has such a shocking record of gross incompetence." Turning on his heel, he strode off for the bedroom and disappeared from view.

"Jesus," muttered Lestrade once he'd gone, massaging his temples. "Why do I do this to myself?" John pressed his lips together, quite unable to answer. His eyes had followed Sherlock, and were cemented now on the bedroom door, beyond which he could just hear Anderson's nasally voice _("What are_ you _doing here?!")_ and the detective's short-tempered rejoinder _("Quiet, imbecile.")_. They seemed to be working themselves into an argument already. The doctor swallowed, listening as their voices escalated; for some reason, that queasy, uncomfortable feeling in his gut had returned.

"John? You alright, mate?"

John started, flustered to see Lestrade looking down at him with curious eyes. How long had he been staring after Sherlock?

"What?"

"I asked if you were alright." The doctor scratched nervously at the back of his neck.

"Yeah," he said. "I'm fine."

And maybe, just maybe, he put a little too much emphasis on the _I_ , because immediately after he said it Lestrade's expression shifted, became just a bit more sober. "Is _Sherlock_ alright?" he asked next, very carefully.

It wouldn't have taken much to throw the D.I. off the trail right then and there, thought John later. After all, Sherlock was _usually_ in a mood, and John was _usually_ worried about him, and there was nothing very different about tonight that hadn't happened countless other nights, at countless other crime scenes. John could have written Sherlock's irritability off as any of the usual things: exhaustion, poor eating habits, histrionics, or even gone so far as to say it was due an argument with his brother, or too many cases at on his plate at once. He could have written it off as _anything._ But Lestrade was still staring at him, searching his face, wanting to help, and John, despite everything, couldn't in that fleeting moment help feeling how very nice it would be to have a commiserator in the whole affair, someone strong and firm who knew Sherlock and who could finally _(Finally!)_ help bear the burden of his relapse.

So when Lestrade's face turned grave and he said, with dead certainty, "He's smoking again, isn't he? And don't lie, John; I can smell the cigarettes on him," the doctor didn't waste time in answering _._

_"Yes."_

The desperation in John's voice seemed to fill in several things for Lestrade at once. Swallowing thickly, and looking slightly queasy himself now, too, he briefly swept the room for any possible listeners and then ushered John to a far corner, away from the main stream of foot traffic running between the bodies and the front door.

"Just cigarettes, though, right?" asked Lestrade. The question was like a pin in John's side, the warm relief he'd hoped to find in sharing the burden vanished in the onerous task of now having to reveal the secret. He felt suddenly oddly ashamed, too, as though it was _he_ , not Sherlock, who'd been caught in the wrong. His lips fumbled uselessly for words.

"John," Lestrade whispered, gripping the doctor's arm as if seeking assurance, his fingers closing incrementally tighter as the doctor's reluctance to answer sharpened his fears. "John, it is just cigarettes, right? Because he wouldn't... I mean, he has you now! You wouldn't let him. Right? _Right?"_

"Greg, I didn't know..." John could barely string the sentence together. Lestrade paled.

"He's not _using?!_ _"_ he whispered fiercely, looking shattered. "Jesus, John, tell me he's not. Please. _Please._ Tell me I did not just let an _addict_ onto my crime scene—"

"He's not an _addict!"_ burst John, and then sucked in a gasp, because now Lestrade was staring expectantly at him, waiting for explanation with wide eyes and bated breath, and John didn't know what to say.

He must have looked especially miserable, though, because at last the D.I. took pity on him, clearing his throat as the weight of the situation settled over them like a shroud. When he spoke next, his voice was heavy and grim.

"How many times?"

John wanted to vomit. Instead, he rasped, "Once. Just the once."

"What did he use?"

John winced. Christ, it felt like a damned interrogation, though all things considered the doctor supposed Lestrade was in fact being gentle. "Cocaine and heroin," he whispered. All the air seemed to rush out of the D.I. in a single breath.

"My god," he wheezed. "My god. Both? At once?" John nodded.

"Why? When did this happen?" Lestrade shook John by the shoulder. "Why didn't you _tell_ me?"

John had just opened his mouth to speak when Sherlock, in a flurry of ill-timed belligerence, swept back into the room. There was a piece of paper clutched in his hand.

"Idiot!" he was growling, an insult aimed clearly at Anderson, who followed him out of the bedroom moments later. "Blithering idiot!"

"Hey, it's not my fault you got the facts turned around—"

"Shut up," Sherlock snapped back at him, whirling about just in time to be halted by Sally as she stepped into his path.

"What's all this?" she cried. "What's going on?"

"Donovan, please inform your cretinous lover that Stanton is American," Sherlock seethed. "He seems to be convinced otherwise."

Sally blinked, nonplussed for just a moment, and then her expression morphed into something overtly smug, the sheer confidence of which turned John's already churning insides to ice.

"Thomas Stanton," she said, very calmly, "is British." Sherlock's lips pulled back in a snarl.

"That's not right!" he spat. "That is _not right!_ Did you even _look_ at him?!" He flung his hand out to indicate the body lying on the floor, and began listing. "Custom buttons on the dress shirt, sun exposure at his collar, wear patterns on his shoes, that _infantile_ tattoo—and did you read this note he typed?!" He brandished the paper he was holding in Sally's face, then started to read:

_"'To my family and my dear Tom,_

_I'm sorry it has come to this. Please know that I never meant to hurt any of you, only I realize ***** now that I simply cannot go on living this way—"'_

'"Realize!'" cried Sherlock, waving the paper again. "'Realize' spelled with a zed, not an s!" He turned back to Sally, casting the letter disgustedly to the floor and looking nearly wild with pent-up frustration. "What more could you possibly need?! _He's American! Thomas Stanton is from—"_

 _"Manchester,"_ interjected Sally. "He's from _Manchester_. We got in contact with his stepmother just before you arrived."

Sherlock's mouth snapped shut at her words, and he drew back, startled. Breathing heavily, looking half indignant, half confused, he made several failed attempts to speak before Sally preemptively cut him off. "Thomas Stanton worked as an IT consultant in the City," she said, ladling a punishing dose of malice into her tone. "All his information's on the public file. He went to school in Leeds; there's even a copy of his university transcript on record! So don't preach to me about shirt buttons and wear patterns on shoes, Freak, because this time _we're_ right, not you!" She laughed. "Honestly, there's a picture of him with his school football team right there on the bloody wall!"

She pointed, and it seemed to John that all the eyes in the room swiveled to a framed portrait hanging just beside the television, showing a gaggle of teenage boys clad matching jerseys arranged neatly on a pitch, one of whom was red-haired and overly freckled and clearly, just _clearly,_ Thomas Stanton.

The confusion in Sherlock's voice was like a fist closing around John's heart. "No, that's not…that isn't…"

"Missed that little detail, did you?" hissed Sally, nearly glowing with vindication now, smirking at Sherlock as he continued to stare haplessly at the photo. "Too busy spouting off lunatic theories to bother with the actual _evidence?"_

John wanted to lunge across the room and slap her for that. Because there was something _sick_ in her haughtiness, the cruelty in her voice, something almost depraved in the unabashed glee with which she was twisting the knife now that she had the room's undivided attention and Sherlock in error. The doctor couldn't remember the last time he'd been more furious with a single person. Desperate for the tide to turn, he kept waiting for Sherlock's retort, some brilliant observation that would stun the audience and put Sally in her place, but, for the first time since John could remember, it didn't come. And gone with it was all the detective's usual confidence, all his swagger, everything that helped protect him from what was happening now, as the confusion in the room slowly gave way to the dawning realization that Sherlock Holmes, _the_ Sherlock Holmes, was _wrong._

Anderson was grinning; Sally looked nearly beside herself with accomplishment. The entire flat was dreadfully silent. At last Sherlock looked up to the D.I.

"Lestrade…" The name was all he could manage, but his tone made plain enough the rest: _Tell them, Lestrade. Tell them I'm right. Please._

John could almost _feel_ Lestrade tensing in his rumpled suit, his own thumping heart beating in time to the D.I.'s hands as they anxiously closed then opened at his sides. And then Lestrade's mouth unfolded into a single word:

_"Sherlock…"_

But it was _too_ plaintive, John realized in a flash of horror; too cautious. The doctor wanted to bash Lestrade around the head for being so obvious, but it was all too late _—_ the pity in Lestrade's eyes had shown through, and Sherlock's expression seemed to bottom out as the realization that not only was he very apparently wrong, but also that Lestrade knew about his relapse, clicked into place. For one single, terrible second his face was rendered completely blank, and then he turned and fled the room, disappearing down the hallway in a whorl of woolen coat.

No one, officers and forensics team and photographers alike, seemed to know what to do next. For a few uncomfortable moments the entire room hung in stasis, everyone glancing awkwardly amongst themselves as if trying to confirm that what they'd just seen had in fact occurred. The poor victims lay all but forgotten in their bloody pools.

Lestrade was the first to shake off the trance, stepping authoritatively into the hush.

"Right then," he barked, clapping his hands together to snap them from their collective stupor. "Back to work, all of you." Begrudgingly, like a great beast waking from slumber, the room complied, the excitement of the moment dissipating amidst the renewed snapping of cameras and swabbing for fingerprints.

"Greg!" hissed John, when at last he too found his voice again. "Greg!" He caught Lestrade's arm to twist him about, bringing them face to face, and was shocked to find the D.I. looking much older than he had just moments before. John searched his face for answers, but Lestrade simply sighed.

"I'm sorry, mate," he said, placing a gentle hand on John's shoulder. "Maybe it's for the best. I didn't realize that he…well…" But there was wariness in his voice now that had John pulling away from him, heart in his throat.

"It-It's fine, Greg," he stammered quickly. "I just…I should go." He couldn't bear to hear more, couldn't bear whatever Lestrade had to say about Sherlock now.

But John hadn't made it two steps to the door before the lilting notes of laughter halted him in his tracks. Enraged, he spun about, zeroing in on Sally and Anderson, who were now standing shoulder to shoulder near the kitchenette, Sally lazily swinging an open evidence bag in her fingers as her face crinkled in mirth at whatever Anderson had just finished saying. Her voice was just barely audible to John from across the room.

"I know! Did you see the look on his face when I showed him the picture? Jesus, what an absolute _freak—"_

 _"Say that again!"_ bellowed John, snapping all present to attention and tearing a collective gasp from the room. He strode forward, white-hot with rage. _"Say that again, Donovan! I dare you!"_

Sally bristled, lips pursed, and for a moment it almost seemed as though she would. But even the shine of her recent victory was no match for the heat of John's fury, and only a few seconds into the standoff Sally's cool countenance broke under the doctor's gaze, and she shifted her weight, crossing her arms over her chest. "Don't you _ever_ call him that," seethed John, thrilled he at last had Sally cowed and that he commanded the rapt attention of the entire room, because they _all_ needed to hear; he was going to put a stop to this, _now_. "Do it again," he hissed, "any of you, behind his back or to his face, and so help me god, you won't have _him_ to answer to. You'll have _me."_

His words were met with stunned silence. Satisfied, John turned for the door.

"I-I do hope that's not a threat, Dr. Watson," he heard Sally call weakly after him the moment he cleared the threshold. Coward. John didn't spare her a backwards glance.

"It is if it fucking needs to be," he shouted over his shoulder, and left it at that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Because I'm from the U.S. I've been writing this story using American, not British, spelling and punctuation. However, I want to make it clear that in the suicide note the word 'realize' is ACTUALLY spelled the American way, with a zed, and not with an s, as per the British standard (i.e. 'realise'). This is why Sherlock can spot the distinction.


	6. Turing Test, pt. 2

John closed the kitchen door quietly behind him. All the lights in 221B were off, but there was no mistaking the grating atonal screeches of Sherlock at his violin, and as his eyes adjusted to the gloom John could just make out the profile of the detective at the window, bow in hand, facing out the glass with the instrument tucked beneath his neck as he often did when submerged deep in thought.

"I'm home," John called out over the racket, feeling foolish but lost for anything better to say, and he knew Sherlock heard him despite the man making no outward indication so. Frowning, John felt along the wall for the main switch, feeling distinctly uneasy at the way Sherlock shuffled a bit to step out of the most direct areas of lamplight that flooded the sitting room, but didn't quit his playing. He was still in his coat, John realized; his cheeks were still slightly flushed from the cold outside. Conclusion—Sherlock had arrived home just a few minutes ago, and had delved headfirst into a contemporary arrangement so aggressive John suspected the bow would need rehairing by its completion. Conclusion—and there was only one conclusion for sawing like _that_ , thought John miserably—the detective was _furious_.

"Sherlock…"

No response. John ventured a few steps into the room, tossing his coat to his chair and his keys to the table. "Look," he said, "I know you want me to leave you alone right now, but you should know I'm not going to. We've put this off long enough." He widened his stance, grounding himself firmly in place. "We need to talk about what happened."

Sherlock made no acknowledgement of John's words other than to jerk his head slightly to the side, foregoing the bow and dropping it where he stood before wheeling the violin around to his chest and starting in on a strain of frenzied pizzicato. His fingers were frenetic upon the strings: _Pluck—pluck—pluck—pluck—pluck…_

"Don't ignore me, Sherlock," warned John, even as his skin began to prickle as the tension between them tightened with each successive note. "You know I can be just as stubborn as you—"

_Pluck—pluck—pluck…_

"And I'm not going away—"

_Pluck—pluck—pluck—pluck—pluck—pluck—pluck—!_

"Until you at least _begin_ to explain what's going on—!"

_PLUCK—!_

The music ended in a violent, off-key twang, and Sherlock spun about, arresting John with a punishing glare. "You told him!" he bellowed, as his pent up anger unleashed itself all at once, and John gawked at the force of it, stepping backwards as Sherlock surged ahead, clutching his violin by the neck and brandishing it threateningly in John's direction. "You _told_ him! How dare you?!"

For the tiniest moment, just the slightest fraction of a second, the two stood frozen, teetering upon a knife's edge of potential. And then Sherlock lunged forward with a scream and snarl, swinging his cherished violin in a wide arc directly towards John's unsuspecting head.

 _"Jesus Christ!"_ John cried, stumbling backwards in a fight to keep his footing, and had to swerve quickly to avoid a thorough braining as Sherlock swung again, this time missing John's ear by centimeters. "SHERLOCK, WHAT THE _FUCK_ ARE YOU DOING?!" he screamed, but the detective only gnashed his teeth in answer, pivoting to chase after his retreating target, moving to raise his arm once more—

And his rage was making him careless, John realized. Thunderstruck, he felt the world grind to a snail's crawl, collapsing into the single scene before him: Sherlock Holmes, livid, wielding his violin in his left hand like a club, with the whole of his attention focused on getting the instrument to contact John's head and _none_ of it on the fact that his right side was left open in the course of the attack, perfectly exposed—

John took his chance. Charging forward, he smashed hard into the detective's body, wrenching Sherlock's free arm around to his back and sending them both toppling to the floor. They landed with a collective _"Oomph,"_ the wind knocked from their lungs from the force of the impact, but almost immediately Sherlock began to struggle, dropping the violin in an effort to throw John off. He landed a sharp blow to John's bad shoulder and John hissed and swore; Sherlock, was, unfortunately, much stronger than he looked. But though he fought with flash and fury John had the advantage of combat training, and though it cost him another several bruises, he maintained his grip on Sherlock's right arm. When at last John caught the left, he wrenched them both up roughly by the wrists and leveraged his body weight to forcibly roll Sherlock to his front.

The skirmish ended like that, with Sherlock on his stomach and John straddling his middle back, having successfully pinned both of Sherlock's hands above his head with his own.

"Get off of me!" Sherlock snarled, chest heaving, bucking against John and at one point very nearly toppling him. "John, _let me go!"_

John pressed down harder upon Sherlock's arms, keeping them flat against the floorboards. "Not until you calm down and decide to act like a _civilized adult!"_

"John!" 

"NO!"

"JOHN!"

"DAMMIT, SHERLOCK—!"

"JOHN, YOU HAD _NO RIGHT_ TO TELL LESTRADE!"

And at that, at the sudden desperation coloring Sherlock's voice, John hesitated, caught ever so slightly by surprise…

…Which was all the opportunity Sherlock needed to tear an arm free from John's hold and spin, catching John's nose with his elbow, hard. There was a thud and a yelp in quick succession, and the doctor went sprawling to the floor.

_"Oohhhh…."_

John moaned, curling on his side as he scrunched his eyes tightly against the searing pain blooming in his nose. He brought his hands to his face; something sticky and warm spilled over and coated his fingers. "Oh my god… _shit_ … Son of a _bitch,"_ he gasped. His words were little more than grunts through grit teeth.

He was faintly aware of shuffling noises as several feet away Sherlock scrabbled to his feet, but it wasn't until something light landed upon him that John at last forced his eyes open. Looking down, he saw a fresh tea towel lying atop his chest, and, looking up, a tousled Sherlock standing over him, inspecting the damage he'd done with bright eyes but an otherwise blank expression.

"Is it broken?" Sherlock asked.

John swallowed, staring blearily up at the ceiling as he lifted his hands and began gingerly prodding along the bridge of his nose, feeling the cartilage. "I don't think so," he rasped. When he spoke, he realized his mouth was filled with the unpleasant tang of copper, and he grabbed the cloth Sherlock had brought him and started to wipe the lower half of his face clean.

Sherlock's eyes swept over the injury as John began to sop the blood away. "It doesn't look too severe," he said. "The swelling should go down in a couple of days." He hesitated, then added, almost as an afterthought: "Sorry." He did _not_ , John noted, sound very apologetic, as he held the cloth to his nose to stem the flow of blood and pushed himself to his elbows.

"Got that out of your system, then?" he asked gruffly, staring up at Sherlock with hard eyes. "Ready to act your age?" The detective frowned.

"You had no right to tell Lestrade," he repeated firmly, looking solemn but justified, and then he turned, stooping to retrieve the bow and violin he'd abandoned in the fight and carefully laying them away in their velvet-lined case, his gentle handling of the instrument revealing no trace of the fact that he'd attempted to manically incapacitate John with it just moments before.  
  
John pressed his lips together. It was only after Sherlock had snapped the case latches shut that he took a breath, and said, in the most even tone he could manage: "I didn't tell him, Sherlock."

His words were somewhat muffled, dense-sounding through his blood-filled sinuses, but their effect was nevertheless immediate. Sherlock froze. The temperature of the flat seemed to drop by ten degrees.

"I mean…that is to say, I _did_ tell him, in a way," John stammered on, suddenly anxious, warily regarding Sherlock's taut shoulders from his spot on the floor. "He, well, I think that he…I only really—"

 _"Speak, John,"_ ordered Sherlock, still rooted in place.

John sighed. "Lestrade figured it out himself," he said. "The way you were acting, not to mention the fact that you absolutely _reek_ of cigarettes, Sherlock; he could tell something was wrong. When you were off speaking with Anderson he asked me...and I told him the truth." John swallowed, tasting blood again, and then carefully added, "To be honest, though, I think what I told him only confirmed what he already suspected."

The silence that followed was deep and dreadful. Sherlock didn't move a hair for over a minute, then two, then three, and John didn't dare move either, until at last he could no longer bear the pressure building behind his eyes and pulled himself to his feet to relieve it, tipping his head back and cupping the bloody towel to his nose. A glance down saw gruesome red stains now splattered along his collar.

And then Sherlock muttered something inaudible, and John's attention was drawn back him.

"Sorry, what?"

Sherlock turned slowly, his eyes brittle now and brimming with contempt. "I _said,"_ he repeated, louder, angrier, "that this is your fault."

 _"What?!"_ spluttered John, astounded, indignant despite himself. "You're blaming at me because Greg figured it out? _You_ are blaming _me_ because the _detective inspector_ figured you out? Are you mad?"

Sherlock answered with baleful silence, and as the two stared each other down John could feel the tension in the room ratcheting up once more. But then Sherlock huffed and turned away, and as if desperate for something to occupy his hands hastily reopened his violin case, snatching the instrument up to again pluck furiously at the strings. Yet even John could hear how out of tune it had fallen in the scuffle, and after only a few quick notes Sherlock slammed it down, dissatisfied, apparently too worked up to bother with adjusting the pegs. He set to pacing the room.

"Greg is your friend, Sherlock," John explained to him, following the detective with his eyes as he moved. "And my friend, and, in case you've forgotten, a cop! He may not be as brilliant as you, but he's not an idiot. He was smart enough to see something was off tonight. With you. With _me."_ John's voice grew louder as he spoke, invariably filling with all the emotion he'd managed to keep locked away for days. "I wouldn't have said anything if he hadn't brought it up, Sherlock, but he did, and I wasn't about to lie to him and act like everything's fine when it very clearly isn't! Do you understand me?!" He was shouting now, staring hard at Sherlock as he continued to roam, hating the way the man couldn't stay still. "It hasn't been fine since…since…" A frustrated snarl pried its way from John's lips, and he stomped his foot down upon the floor hard enough to rattle the beetles in their display cases. _"_ _Stop acting like it's fine!"_

Sherlock scowled, drawing to a halt and pulling his arms to himself in a way that might have seemed defensive had he not been so overtly furious. _"It,"_ he seethed, not breaking eye contact with John, "is a _private_ matter. You didn't have any right to share what's happening in my private life with Lestrade."

John's mouth worked, ready to hurl a stinging retort…and then held back, for beneath all his festering rage there was a logical, sympathetic part of his brain that thought that what Sherlock was telling him might, in a small way, be true. Sherlock saw his hesitation and nodded triumphantly, eyes shining in the smug way they tended to do whenever he proved a point.

"It was unconscionable behavior, John," he said. "Completely out of line."

"Well, you'd certainly be the expert in _that_ , wouldn't you?" countered the doctor, angrily motioning to his ruined shirt before balling the bloody rag and throwing it hard at Sherlock, where it struck his chest and crumpled to a heap at his feet. "Just where the fuck do you get off?!" He stepped forward, adrenaline pumping in his veins. He could feel his body gearing up for another spar, but upon closer inspection of Sherlock's face John realized he seemed more tired than angry, and his temper flagged.

"Look," he said finally, "you have to understand the position this puts me in, Sherlock—"

Sherlock's face contorted into a mask of malice.

"Oh, I understand _perfectly!"_ he spat, closing in on John to begin circling him in slow, predatory steps. "Poor, patient, long-suffering Dr. Watson," he sneered, his words ugly and mocking, the tails of his Belstaff flaring around his legs like a live shadow. "Isn't it a wonder he stays sane, having to look after Sherlock bloody Holmes day and night, making sure he _eats_ properly and _sleeps_ properly and says 'please' and 'thank you' and wears a bloody _coat_ every time he walks outside!"

John's mouth fell open. Suddenly Sherlock leapt forward, seizing him roughly by the shoulders. "Do you think I don't hear what they say about you John?!" he screamed, as the pitch of his voice inched higher, becoming hysterical. "About me, the _Freak?!_ Every other comment on your blog is little more than a petition for your canonization! Do you think I can't make the connection?! Do you think I'm so dense I'm completely oblivious to what the whole of England is thinking?! _Idiot!"_ He threw John away from him, hard enough that the doctor canted backwards into the center table.

"Sherlock…!" John gasped, wholly unable to do much of anything in the way of words, but Sherlock had resumed his frantic pacing, and wasn't listening.

"And now that you've told Lestrade," he wailed, "well, it won't be long before the whole Yard knows, and then the press, and that's my whole reputation gone! Everything I've worked for, John— _gone!"_ He cradled his head in his hands, pulling hard at his hair. "Don't you understand what it all means?" he sobbed. "Nothing _works_ anymore! My god, I can't even…I can't even…" He was too overcome to continue. At last his arms dropped, and he bit out a hollow laugh.

"Well, at least we know Donovan and Anderson are having a field day over this, mm? They're probably busy raking in their winnings from the office pool as we speak—How long will it take for Sherlock Holmes to lose his mind? Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, place your bets…"

John swallowed thickly, feeling his throat begin to constrict with horrified disbelief. He'd never witnessed Sherlock so callously self-deprecating, he realized, and he found himself completely unprepared to handle the way his friend, normally so artfully composed, seemed to be dissolving into feverish madness right before his eyes. "Sherlock," he breathed, panicked that if the detective didn't calm down soon he'd hurt himself, "Sherlock, stop this—"

 _"How can I?!"_ Sherlock bellowed. "Everything I've tried my whole life to build, John, _ruined!_ My entire career!" He swiveled to face John, and his eyes were wild, shining with almost palpable heat. He leveled an accusing finger in John's direction. _"And it's ALL—YOUR—FAULT!"_

 _"NO IT'S NOT!"_ John screamed, desperate now but angry, and he pushed himself from the table, his expression severe enough to halt Sherlock mid-step. "No! It isn't, Sherlock, not at all! And do you know why? Because _I_ didn't make you relapse! _I_ didn't force the needle in your arm! No one did! Not Greg and not Donovan and not Anderson and not your brother and certainly not me! So stop acting like such a bloody martyr, because getting high was _your_ decision!" He jabbed a finger of his own at Sherlock. _"Yours!"_

"…And it's not the end of your career," John sighed at last, softening at the way Sherlock's gaze had fallen slowly to the floor over the course of his rant, away from the scrutiny of John's eyes. "And you're not losing your mind. This is just a…a misstep, but nothing you can't recover from—"

"Nothing _from which you cannot recover,"_ muttered Sherlock, interrupting again. "My god, John, all those years spent in university; didn't they ever teach you anything about formal sentence structure?"

"Dammit, Sherlock," John barked, "listen to what I'm saying! I'm telling you to give Greg the credit he deserves. And me! Can't you get it through your thick skull that all I'm trying to do is understand what's happening to you?"

"I don't want _understanding!"_ Sherlock spat, nostrils flaring at the mention of the word. "I don't want to be coddled! I don't need pity and people holding my hand and treating me like an invalid limping along at every step." His eyes narrowed. "You may be categorically simple, John, but I would think that _you_ , of all people, could comprehend _that_."

John stilled, feeling instantly rent apart; a tinge of color rose in his cheeks that had absolutely nothing to do with anger. For a moment he was too furious to speak, but then he swallowed, and forced the words out anyway, his voice high and thin with rage. "You _,"_ he hissed. _"YOU!_ You arrogant, insufferable, unbelievable son of a _bitch!"_ The last word was a murderous bawl, and with a violent roar John ripped the chair out from underneath the table and heaved it clean across the room. Sherlock recoiled as it upended against the far wall. _Good_ , thought John, feeling vindictive, for Sherlock's barb had struck a chord that resonated right to the root of his own deepest insecurities, and the man had done it on purpose, said it specifically to hurt. "Do you have _any_ idea what you put me through?!" John screamed at him, shouting at the top of his lungs. "How much I suffer for it?! For you?! Do you get that it's all for you?! Do you even care?! _Can_ you even care?!" John was beside himself with fury. His throat was growing hoarse from shouting. "Jesus Christ, Sherlock, I fucking _HATE_ you sometimes!"

 _"Then why stay with me?!"_ Sherlock shrieked, and now there was a deep, ferocious sorrow in his voice that matched John's own in intensity but which John had never heard from the detective before. Sherlock stepped forward, throwing his arms out to effectively double his size; John startled and had to step back a bit just to avoid colliding with him. "Why continue living here, if it's such torture?!" Sherlock screamed. "Move out! Go! Run off with _Mary_ and settle down into that dull life of domestic bliss you're so intent on carving out with whomever will have you!" Utterly disgusted, he spun on his heel, collapsing into a tight ball in his chair with his back to John and his knees drawn up to his chest. "Just leave me here alone!" he shouted, his tone hateful and dark. "What do _I_ care? I don't _need_ you, John! I'm the _Freak,_ remember?! I don't need _anyone!"_

John drooped, astonished. Suddenly, he felt violently ill, like he'd been punched in the gut, and for a moment he simply stared at the detective, mouth agape, gripping the back of his chair for support. "Sherlock…" he breathed. The weight of the man's inadvertent confession hung heavy in the air.

"Is that what this is all about?" John finally wheezed, absently wiping away a stray trickle of blood working his way down his chin from his nose. "Is that it? You're scared I'm going to, what—move out? Get married? Leave you?" But Sherlock didn't answer, just dipped his head down farther between his knees as though hoping he might disappear into the folds of his coat.

"My god." John took a few hesitant steps forward. "My god, Sherlock, you need to tell me. Please. Because I can't keep doing this; I can't keep pretending nothing's changed. And neither can you. Look at us! Look at what we're doing!" John glanced to the far wall, where the chair he'd thrown had carved a small, shallow gash in the wallpaper and the plaster beneath, and then to his shirt, where his shed blood was drying in spots of brown. "If you've ever valued my friendship, Sherlock," he said, "ever, at all, you'll tell me what happened the night you got high. _Please."_

Sherlock tensed, but at last raised his head. "There's nothing to tell," he grumbled into his kneecaps. "You saw the kit on the table! Why make me repeat what you already know?" John sucked in a breath, exasperated nearly to the point of losing his temper completely.

"Where did you get it, then?" he bit out. "Let's start there. The drugs. Have you been keeping that stuff in the flat?"

Sherlock turned around slightly, visibly annoyed. "I'm not an idiot, John," he muttered.

"Then where?"

A moment of punctuated silence. "I contacted a dealer."

"Oh, just like that?" John snapped, unable to prevent a dash of black sarcasm from poisoning his voice. "Got his number on speed dial after all this time?"

"Don't be absurd," Sherlock answered, unfurling his limbs now enough to turn and face the doctor directly. "The _network_ , John. Drugs dealers aren't exactly few and far between in the homeless community." John regarded Sherlock carefully, then nodded.

"Aha, right. The network. So…what? He delivered and you…" John made an indistinct fluttering gesture in the direction of the kitchen.

"Yes."

"And…?"

"And what do you think?!" shouted Sherlock, leaping to his feet, spitting mad again. "I got high! Cocaine and heroin via intravenous solution! Must I spell it out for you? Are you a _doctor_ or not?!"

He spoke the title with purposeful contempt, but John refused to take the bait. Sheer determination propelled him forward, coalescing like a cold weight in his stomach, awful but grounding. "What happened then?" he asked, keeping his voice and face neutral. "What did you do?"

Sherlock grimaced. "Why does it matter?"

"Because I'm asking," John told him. "Tell me."

"I stayed in the flat," came the tetchy response. "I stayed here." It was clearly all Sherlock wished to reveal, but John did not relent, and finally the detective sighed, stomping his feet and rolling his eyes and on the whole acting in a way that would have at any other time reminded John of a petulant child. "Experiments," Sherlock said at last. "Violin. _Thinking_."

"And?" prompted John. "What happened then?"

Sherlock's face furrowed in thought, then fell slack. "Things…get a bit fuzzy after the first few hours," he muttered ponderously, and John felt his chest tighten in anticipation, because the distant, faraway look in Sherlock's eyes was the look of a man who was dodging something significant. And it couldn't be— _How could he_ possibly _remember?!—_ but now that it seemed he might, evading the subject for a moment longer felt to both John wholly unbearable and utterly necessary. _The kiss, the kiss._ The cold weight in his stomach was like water now, rising slowly up his throat with the firm intent to drown.

_The kiss, the kiss, the kiss…_

"Just tell me what you remember," said John, and Sherlock twitched, and John felt himself shouting in his own brain, _God, Sherlock, just say it: John, I kissed you. That's what happened. I got high and passed out and when I woke up I told you I'd go mad without you and then I kissed you and that's what happened. That's the truth._

"When I woke up I was in bed and Mycroft was at the door."

John blinked. "What?"

"That's the next thing I remember," said Sherlock, and John saw that his distant, faraway expression had vanished. "Waking up with my fool of a brother attempting to break into our kitchen."

"…Nothing else, then?" croaked John, and maybe it was true, though John couldn't decide if that was wonderful or awful or both. "You don't—you're sure you don't remember anything else?"

Sherlock's eyes narrowed. "Should I?"

"No!" answered John, far too emphatically. Sherlock's eyebrows shot up, and John hastily made to compensate. "I mean, I just…No. All right? I mean no. Because it's okay if you don't. Remember, that is. It's fine. Not that there's anything else _to_ remember, really, so it doesn't even matter, but if there were—not that I'm saying there is, mind you—but if there were, that's okay, too; I mean, what I'm trying to say is, it's all fine either way…"

 _Christ, shut up already_ , thought John desperately. But he could hear himself speaking still, babbling on even as Sherlock's brow began to knit together in confusion, because now there was another, more alarming _thing_ that was threatening to pour out of John's mouth instead, a dreadful, terrifying uncertainty that had been festering in a faraway corner of his mind for five days now, ever since he'd seen Sherlock unconscious in the bath, and John really, really, _really_ did not want to ask that thing, and _God, you idiot, just say something else,_ anything _else, anything at all, anything you can think of—_

"John." Sherlock's voice sent John's defenses tumbling. "Say what you mean. What are you asking me?"

 _"Fuck,_ Sherlock," burst John, overcome, "I want to know the truth! I want to know why you did it! I want…I want…" And then, finally, the terrible question bubbled to the surface: _"I want to know if you were trying to kill yourself!"_

The words came out as almost a sob, which was not what John intended. And yet the moment he spoke them it was as if a floodgate had broken, and suddenly there were tears and pressure in his sinuses and a strange, undignified choking sound ripping itself from the bottom of his throat. Pressing his hands to his face, John grit his teeth against the urge to scream, not quite sure why this was affecting him so powerfully, because, after all, he was _soldier_ and a _doctor_ and he'd been to war and seen real, actual death—felt it and smelt it and had it slip through his very fingers…

John sniffed exactly once, twice, and then collected himself, squeezing his palms against his eyes to stem the flow of tears. He felt exhausted, spent. His nose was throbbing. When he at last dropped his hands, he found Sherlock staring back at him, stunned, his own eyes wide as saucers.

"I'm not suicidal, John," he whispered.

John nodded, rasping out a laugh and a watery smile because it felt so good to hear that, even though John wasn't certain Sherlock was being completely honest. "Okay," he said. "Good. That's good." His smile collapsed. "But then _why?_ Why now? You've been clean for years! Haven't you?" He extended his hands in supplication, but Sherlock flinched away, cringing as though John had swung at him.

 _"No!"_ John protested, recognizing the look for what it was, and stepped forward to clutch the detective's cold hands in his own before the man could withdraw into himself completely. Startled by the contact, Sherlock sprang into a panicked effort to squirm free, but John held fast, softly murmuring "No, no, no," even as Sherlock began to struggle harder against him. He was on the verge of outright thrashing when John finally grit his teeth and took the plunge, wrapping his arms around Sherlock to trap him in a powerful embrace.

"Don't fight me, Sherlock," he pleaded.

He was talking sideways into shirt buttons, but the desperation in his voice was perfectly clear. Above him, Sherlock snarled, twisting furiously. John squeezed tighter. The pressure jostled the clots in his sinuses, sent fresh blood dribbling down the detective's shirtfront. "Please, Sherlock," John breathed, "don't do this. Don't close off from me. I can't bear it." Tears were pricking his eyes again, but John didn't have the presence of mind to feel ridiculous. It was too much of a relief, he thought, like digging out the rot of a wound, clearing away the infected flesh so what remained could finally start to heal. "I'm your friend," he murmured. "I'm your friend. I'll _always_ be your friend. Don't shut me out."

And, miraculously, Sherlock stilled.

"John…"

It was spoken so softly at first that John wasn't even sure he'd heard it. But then it came again, _"John,"_ louder and with an unmistakable waver. The doctor sighed, and had barely loosened his grip on the detective when he found himself redoubling his efforts as Sherlock suddenly slumped against him, leaning his entire weight into John with a shudder that ran through them both.

"John…"

"Shh," John whispered, running his hand soothingly along Sherlock's spine. "Shh, it's okay, come on now…"

Shifting the detective in his arms, he maneuvered them backwards, carefully lowering the younger man into his armchair and following him down, coming to a rest on his knees upon the floor between Sherlock's extended legs. He took the detective's hands in his own again. "Tell me what happened," he said. "Tell me why."

John watched as Sherlock's eyes flicked to meet his, heartbroken to see their usual quicksilver shine dulled to lead by resignation. He looked so _tired,_ John thought. So _hurt_. And yes, it was true, sometimes he really did drive John up the walls, but god, seeing him like this—after tonight—John wanted nothing more than to pull Sherlock's head into the crook of his shoulder and _breathe,_ just hold him in his arms and _breathe_. He wanted to…wanted to…

John licked his lips, thinking. He wanted to reach deep down into Sherlock's very core and extract everything that was painful, to take it all on himself. He would do it, if he could. If it were possible. But all John had was Sherlock's limp fingers intertwined in his, and the way the detective's jaw was mutely working, grinding his teeth as he tried to push whatever ball of words was sticking in his throat past his lips. "Just tell me," he urged again.

"I…" said Sherlock, and the doctor leant forward, desperate to hear. But the closeness sent Sherlock into retreat, and he shook his head, squeezing his eyes tight. "No, it's ridiculous, I-I can't—"

"Yes you can," answered John. They were speaking in whispers now, in delicate touches. "Yes you can. Just talk to me, Sherlock. Please." The detective opened his eyes.

"You wouldn't understand…"

"Just give me a chance!" burst John, and when Sherlock winced and moved to turn away John cupped the detective's cheek in his hand, angling his head so that they were facing each other once more. "Hey, look, it's just me, see?" He nodded to the empty flat, cracking a smile that was somehow genuine despite the pain throbbing in his nose, his chest. "Just me. Just John. And I'll to anything to help you, Sherlock. You know that, yeah? You have to know that. I do care about you. I'll do anything you need."

Sherlock sighed wearily. "Mycroft says caring isn't an advantage," he mumbled.

"And since when do you give a damn what your brother says?" John thrust back, a little angry now, for though he wasn't sure exactly why Sherlock was dragging Mycroft into this, the way the detective's face twisted painfully as he spoke made it clear he was grappling with some great inner turmoil. The very idea that Mycroft had anything to do with loading that kind of weight onto his brother was positively infuriating.

"In any case," said John, "that's not true. So if that's why… If that's why you're holding back, if that's why you're not…" John took a breath, licking his lips again, uncertain why his entire frame was locking up with a bizarrely thrilling pressure. "If that's why you're not telling me what you want to tell me," he finally said, "then you should know that Mycroft is wrong. He's _wrong,_ Sherlock."

The detective opened his eyes, searching John's face. "I'm sorry he told you that," John whispered, trying his best to smile. "I am _so sorry._ "

Sherlock raked in a shuddering breath, and then, very slowly, nodded.

There were only inches between them now, and without a second thought John closed the gap, leaning in until their foreheads were pressed together, their breaths mingling in the space between their open lips. Reveling in the proximity, John's eyes slid shut; somehow, he knew Sherlock's had done the same. "Just tell me," he whispered. "Okay? All you have to do is tell me."

"John…"

"Just let me in." The doctor squeezed Sherlock's fingers, and felt his heart swell nearly to bursting when Sherlock—almost imperceptibly—squeezed back. "Please tell me how to help you."

"I…I need…"

This was it, John could feel: they were on the cusp of revelation. The Ark of the Covenant. The Holy Grail. A doctor and a detective perched together on the edge of enlightenment. John tensed, shuddered, bit his lip to keep from making noise. He could feel the severity of the moment in his bones; the air between them was charged with the crackling energy of exponential promise. He didn't dare open his eyes. "What?" he murmured. "What do you need?"

 _Answer me, Sherlock_.

"I need…"

_Yes._

"John, I need…"

_Yes, please, say it._

Sherlock didn't, but something in the way his breathing hitched at that very moment seemed to communicate everything all at once regardless, and John, absolutely _thrumming_ with wild, scintillating joy, tipped forward…

_"John—!"_

It was more a rush of air than a spoken word. But the urgency of it knocked John back into conscious thought, and he froze, snapping his eyes open as he realized with a swell of frigid horror just what he'd been leaning in to do. Sherlock, for his part, looked stricken, his own eyes wide with a vast, profound kind of terror, and John felt eviscerated by their expression, as though the sucking force of an entire sea rolling itself back from shore, and back, and back, never to return, had just swept himself and everything he'd ever known away.

And all at once, John's proximity to Sherlock—forehead to forehead, fingers tangled, lips almost touching but for a paper-thin sheet of warm air between them—felt grotesquely inappropriate. Lurching backwards, John managed to fall ungracefully upon his backside before stumbling hurriedly to his feet, using the arm of his chair to pull himself up.

"I'm sorry," he gasped, breathless with panic. The room was spinning and his nose was throbbing and blood was in his mouth and he felt liable to be sick at any moment. His words rose like bile on his tongue. "I'm sorry, so sorry, I just—I…oh my god…"

Monstrous. He felt monstrous. Everything they were going through, everything _Sherlock_ was going through, and John's solution was to—what? Snog him back to his senses? Put words in Sherlock's mouth and his hands on him when he was at his most vulnerable, his most come apart? What was that going to solve, except the question of whether or not John was actually the most depraved piece of scum walking the planet?

And Mary—

And he wasn't gay—

And even so, thought John, _even so_ , what good could possibly have come of it?! What had he could have possibly been hoping for, in that moment of closeness—?

_—A sudden rush forward and a sharp intake of breath as Sherlock, sopping wet and bleary-eyed, crowds him up against the shower stall, clutching shirt fabric in his lean white hands and then crushes their lips together, violently, ungracefully, breaking skin…_

_…and John smiles warmly, leans forward, and kisses him back, barely has time to even register the sight of_ _Sherlock in his sheet before he's taken the detective's beaming face in both his hands and is kissing him back, lips together, moving together, and then comes the sound of a hundred flash bulbs snapping off, and the cheers, and Lestrade laughing happily, and still,_ still, _John is kissing Sherlock—_

John sucked in a breath, fighting the sudden compulsion to retch. _That is not how it happened_ , he thought savagely, steadying himself against the wall, because the memory was grossly, hideously _wrong_ —Sherlock had been wearing pajamas that night, not a sheet, and there had been _no_ cameras and _no_ Lestrade and _no_ cheers and _certainly_ no John Watson smiling and cupping Sherlock's face and _kissing back—_

It hadn't happened. _So why did he remember it?_

God, he was ashamed of himself. He'd violated a trust, trampled carelessly over Sherlock's wants and needs, and all John could think was _monstrous_ —that word, again and again, for himself and for everything that was happening. He couldn't escape it now.

Monstrous.

"Where are you going?"

Sherlock's sudden words stuck like daggers in John's back, halting him in his tracks. The doctor had not been aware he was going anywhere, truthfully, but looking down he saw that indeed he'd been struggling into his coat, clutching his keys in his trembling hands. He opened his mouth to respond, and found he had no ready reply.

He wanted to answer "Mary's," because it would have been the easiest, most predictable thing to say. But Mary had left London hours ago, and the truth of the matter was that what John wanted more than anything else right now was to be alone.

"Out," he croaked at last. "To a pub. I just need to…" John's voice trailed off, and he gripped his keys in his hand so hard the metallic grooves came close to slicing skin. "Just out, okay? I just need to get out." And he did, desperately. The flat was stifling, the sight of Sherlock was unbearable, and John couldn't bear any of it a moment longer.

It was then that John realized he was staring at the kitchen table, where the abandoned fingers from earlier that evening still sat arranged in their trays.

"I'll have Mrs. Hudson check up on you later tonight," he said. "So don't do anything stupid." And that was cruel to say, John knew, unfair, but as he stood there, back to Sherlock, staring at those fingers, the doctor sensed a deep, visceral anger welling inside him the tenor of which he hadn't felt in years—not since Afghanistan, the bullet, the months of excruciating physical therapy—the kind of inconsolable fury that comes with realizing that the immutable boundaries of the physical universe are not always compatible with dreams.

_Powerlessness._

"John…"

Sherlock's voice was gravelly, as though his speech had all the grit of London sticking to it. Desperate, it seemed. Weighty. Demanding. _"John_."

But John shook his head to quiet him. _Enough,_ he thought. _My god, enough._

"I'm sorry, Sherlock," he said. "I really am."

"John—!"

But John fled the flat before Sherlock could say another word.

 

∞

 

It took Sherlock exactly three hours and twenty-seven minutes to find Nicky again.

The dealer had been forced to relocate, was sporting an ugly yellow bruise on his left cheek, and, obsidian eyes flashing in the cold winter air, lost no time in demanding Sherlock compensate him for the cost of all the product he'd been carrying the night Mycroft's thugs accosted him. They'd cleaned him out, Nicky explained, and what he'd had on him was very close to pure.

But when Sherlock paid, paid and didn't even complain when the dealer charged him further, spuriously citing lost business, Nicky acquiesced, and let him stay.

Sherlock tried not to pay too close attention to where they ended up. It was a derelict shipping house, abutting the Thames and past its expiry date by decades, but apart from the smells of fish and rust and rotting things, and the twenty years of grime covering the windows, Sherlock tried not to think about it too closely. Nicky led; he followed.

There was a mattress, horrific in condition, but Nicky told him to sit, and so Sherlock did.

Then there was a spoon in his hand, Nicky crushing off-white pills on a bit of mirror, telling him it would be twenty quid if he wanted a hit, and yes, Sherlock did.

He didn't realize his hands were shaking until he'd dropped the spoon twice, didn't realize he'd begun to cry until fat, hot tears had gotten in the way of tying the tourniquet properly. And that was as good a measure as any of how truly pathetic he'd become, thought Sherlock—that even this, shooting up upon a crusty mattress with all the dank filth of Nicky's bolt-hole hanging from his neck like an oxen's yoke, was not even the final humiliation, for when at last the needle was ready Sherlock was blubbering so uncontrollably that he managed to stick himself twice before Nicky took the syringe away and eased it into Sherlock's vein himself.

"There now, that's a good lad," crooned the dealer, rubbing the injection site with the pad of his thumb as he pulled the needle free, then unwound the rubber tubing from Sherlock's bicep. Sherlock groaned, his breaths coming in shaky little gasps as Nicky pulled his sleeve down into place, then helped him back into his coat.

"John…" The name was thick and cumbersome on Sherlock's tongue.

"Ain't no John 'ere, mate," said Nicky. He pushed at Sherlock's shoulders. "Now lie back…there we are…"

Grunting, pliant with the drug, Sherlock allowed himself to be lowered gently onto the mattress. But no sooner had his head hit the padding than he became dimly aware of Nicky crowding into his space, of pilfering hands rifling through his trouser pockets, between the folds of his coat.

His wallet, Sherlock realized a moment later. His phone. Stupid, but he couldn't bring himself to care.

"I'm gonna take such good care of you, Mr. 'Olmes," Nicky was whispering into his ear. "Just like old times. You remember the old times…"

Sherlock could not remember anything. His eyes were strung with lead, could focus on nothing. His body was an eternity away. Breathe in, breathe out—he was a pair of lungs; a mouth hanging obscenely open as it raked in ragged gulps of air; a salty wetness on his cheeks that refused to dry.

"Sleep now…sleep now…" Nicky's words were in his head, insidious, a rumbling mantra tugging him towards the crescendo of oblivion. _"Sleeeeep…"_

 _Event horizon,_ something secret and silver-sharp whispered to Sherlock then, and somehow the detective knew it would be his last lucid thought for a long while. _Black holes. The point of no return._

_Quantum field theory; gravitational lensing._

_Paradigm shifts._

_The science of deduction._

_John._

Sherlock tumbled into the void.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy, my darlings, and as always, thank you all so much for your continued support. Your lovely feedback is the dilithium to my warp core, the plutonium to my flux capacitor.


	7. QSL?

_Hello, you've reached the voice mail of Sherlock Holmes. If you are a potential client calling to schedule a consultation, please leave your name, contact information, and a description of your case in five sentences or fewer at the tone. Relevant facts only. Proper grammar only. Dull cases need not apply._

***Beep***

**Message 1  
** **2011-12-23 Fr 23:24 UTC:**  
Sherlock, hey, it’s me. Look, I’m sorry for running off there, I just, er…I just needed to step out for a bit, clear my head, you know? Mrs. Hudson says she didn’t hear you leave, and your phone’s off so I’m assuming you don’t want to talk, but just…I’m just calling to tell you I apologize, okay? Give me a ring or text or something when you get this, yeah? Bye.

 **Message 2**  
 **2011-12-24 Sa 17:10 UTC:**  
It’s me again; Sherlock, are you all right? Where are you? Molly told me the forensics labs at Bart’s are closed until after Boxing Day and Lestrade says they haven’t seen you down at the Yard, either. Please get back to me. You don’t have to come home, but at least let me know you’re okay. I just……all right? Bye.

 **Message 3**  
 **2011-12-24 Sa 24:03 UTC:**  
Sherlock? Please?

 

∞

 

Sherlock dreamt about a boy.

They stood together on a square-rigged ship, moving at incredible speed across an oily black expanse. The vessel was massive, incomprehensible; prow to stern it seemed to stretch its own eternity, the details of its fighting tops nearly lost high above in the glossy blur of extraordinary scope. In Sherlock’s periphery, great white sails billowed outwards, straining the cordage with a wind he could neither hear nor feel; an omnipresent susurrus served as the sole indicator that they were at sea. Overhead, constellations wheeled across the sky in a kaleidoscope of light.

In his hands, Sherlock held a map he could not read.

“You told me you could navigate,” said the boy suddenly, the accusation in his tone turning Sherlock’s stomach every bit as much as the deck heaving steadily, powerfully, below his feet. He looked up from the indecipherable parchment.

“What?”

“You _told_ me you could navigate,” said the boy again. His tricorne hat was set low on his brow and he looked wild and ready for a challenge. “You _lied.”_

“This is uncharted territory,” said Sherlock defensively. “We’ve strayed off the edges of the map.”

“So?” countered the boy, unmoved. “You told me you could plot the course.”

“Well, I thought I could,” Sherlock snipped back, turning a scrutinizing eye to the map to once again try and pry out its meaning. “I thought if I had the proper data—”

“Not much use knowing where you want to go if you don’t know how to get there, is it?” huffed the boy, cutting him off. He seemed older than the detective remembered, though perhaps it was only his anger that made him seem more brazen, more at home on this fantastical ship than Sherlock felt himself—despite the fact that they were by some strange measure the same person.

“If we’re lost we’ll have to track by sky,” the boy said then, apparently having seen enough of his counterpart's cartographical incompetence. He pushed an inexplicably manifested brass sextant into Sherlock’s hands. “The stars will see us home.”

Sherlock looked up. Indeed, the galaxies were on full display, a breathtaking celestial tapestry sparkling like jewels sewn into a bolt of velvet. But he didn't have to raise the instrument to his eye to know he'd find no answers there, or, at least, no answers he had the ability to decode. 

He gazed upwards for a moment, then lowered his head, meeting the boy's pressing expectations with the sorry truth. “I deleted the stars.”

The boy balked, looked contemptuous and then ultimately crestfallen. “You’re not much of a pirate,” he grumbled.

Sherlock shook his head. “No.”

The boy took back the sextant and the map; Sherlock had just enough time to register their loss as a mark of failure before the objects slid into obscurity. “Poor Sherlock,” the boy sighed, almost sang, low and mournful like a funeral dirge, and then he was fading at the edges, too, disappearing in a rushing gale that swept up from the heart of the dream and began ripping it to shreds. But the lament continued, loud and clear: “Poor Sherlock. Poor Sherlock. _Pooooooooor Sherlock…”_

Sherlock didn’t realize he was saying it aloud until Nicky struck him across the face, screaming at him to shut his bloody trap.

 

∞

 

_Hello, you've reached the voice mail of Sherlock Holmes. If you are a potential client calling to schedule a consultation, please leave your name, contact information, and a description of your case in five sentences or fewer at the tone. Relevant facts only. Proper grammar only. Dull cases need not apply._

***Beep***

**Message 4**  
 **2011-12-25 Su 10:48 UTC:**  
John again. Look, I am really trying not to panic, but now you’re worrying me. You’re not…I mean, you’re not in trouble, are you? Why aren’t you picking up your phone?! For the love of god, Sherlock, it’s Christmas Day; _call me back._

 **Message 5**  
 **2011-12-25 Su 21:55 UTC:**  
Right, then. Merry fucking Christmas to you, too, prick.

 **Message 6**  
 **2011-12-25 Su 21:56 UTC:**  
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. Sherlock, I—whatever this is, whatever’s going on, it’s fine. We can work through it. I promise. But you have to come home. Okay? Come home. I…I just want you to come home.

 **Message 7**  
 **2011-12-25 Su 23:47 UTC:**  
Merry Christmas, Sherlock.

 

∞

 

Sherlock fidgeted where he sat, quickly rubbing the crushed remains of the last pill he had into the backs of his gums.

He was not alone in the warehouse room—just a short distance away one of Nicky’s pushers _(Gerald? J.J.? Jeremy?)_ was shuffling on his feet as he waited for his boss, and Sherlock found himself just barely able to ignore the man’s increasingly unsavory leers when Nicky at last blew in, startling them both. A thin, light something clattered to the table in front of Sherlock’s face, and the detective stared down at it, blinking, slowly focusing and refocusing his vision until he realized he was staring at his own debit card.

“Your account’s been frozen,” Nicky informed him. Distantly, Sherlock wondered how many withdrawals Nicky must have managed before Mycroft flagged his card, and also, more disturbingly, how Nicky got his PIN, and that he must be more pliant than he knew on whatever the dealer was giving him.

He ran his tongue slowly across his fuzzy teeth.

Nicky was staring. “This ain’t a charity, Mr. ‘Olmes,” he said. “Not even for you. Find a way to pay or I’m cutting you off.”

 _A way to pay—_ even with Sherlock’s head stewing in opiates he could extrapolate well enough to blanch at the words. They seemed all the invitation Gerald/J.J./Jeremy needed, too, for suddenly there was a scuffle of footsteps to Sherlock's right, and before the detective could react the man had glided close and slid a rough hand under his chin, tugging Sherlock's face up so they were looking eye to eye.

“Lovely posh thing, ain't he, Nick?” the man murmured, though his ravenous eyes didn’t move from Sherlock’s. “Got a sweet little mouth on him, too." His thumb trailed the ridge of Sherlock's cheek. "I know lots of blokes who'd pay a pretty penny to see those lips go to work, you know—”

Sherlock knocked the man's hand away, horrified. _“Keep your hands off me!”_

“Ooh, feisty,” the man chuckled, a laugh disproportionately bright for their damp surroundings, but he stepped away, and allowed Sherlock to scuttle backwards.

“My mobile,” Sherlock rasped, turning wildly to Nicky. “You took my mobile and it was nearly new; that was 300, 400 pounds at least! I don’t owe you any more.”

“Do you think I’m stupid?” Nicky spat. “You must, if you think I'm about to let you start  _negotiating!"_ His face clouded with dark, unkind emotion. "Do you think I don't remember?" he asked. "Eh? What ‘appened the last time you got clean?!" The volume of his voice escalated, and he slammed his fist down on the table. "When you turned _traitor,_ leaked all our little secrets to the _police?!"_ His fist came down again, and this time Sherlock flinched. "Finally decided you were too good for all this, did you?" Nicky asked, holding his arms out to their shabby surroundings. "Too good for all the people what been so good to you?" His lips tugged up into a wicked smirk. "Or were you afraid you'd come _crawling_ back, if you didn't make sure you couldn't? 'Coz that's what _I_ believe.”

Nicky let the questions fall unanswered between them, kicking a discarded needle aside to begin a slow advance in Sherlock's direction. “Either way, that was some bad business, Mr. ‘Olmes," he said. "Made a lot of people mad, you did. Burned a lot of bridges. And now, well, now there ain’t no one left willing to take you in but dear old me.” He laughed, rough and heartless, and when he was near enough crouched low, grabbing Sherlock’s collar before Sherlock could scramble away. “So let me tell you ‘ow this is going to work,” he hissed. “I ain't a fool and neither are you. Your mobile was collateral. _That—”_ he pointed to Sherlock’s debit card, still lying on the table “—was rent. And _now,_ you're gonna to pay for what you’ve used, and that don’t come cheap, and I don’t take fuckin’ I.O.U.’s.”

Nicky dropped his hold on Sherlock's lapels and stepped back. “You've made yourself a very expensive customer, Sir Genius," he said. "So go on; put that famous brain of yours to work." He jerked his head towards his pusher. “Unless you’d like to take Jamie 'ere up on 'is offer? I owe 'im a bit of money…perhaps you'd like to 'elp me make us square?”

Sherlock’s eyes widened. “Wait,” he croaked, scrunching his limbs protectively around himself as Jamie took a slow step forward, one hand traveling suggestively to the buckle at his waist. “Wait! Just give me a moment to _think!”_

Nicky held up a hand, and Jamie paused, looking put upon and annoyed. Sherlock swallowed hard, then unfolded his body enough to fumble for the inner lining of his coat, searching for the small bump beneath the silk at the pit of his left arm. There was a popping noise as he ripped open the seam, and then he dug out the object carefully stashed within and held it aloft: a heavy platinum wristwatch.

“Take it,” he said, and Nicky did, closing his dirty fingers eagerly around the timepiece. Sherlock watched as he turned it over in his hands, peering at it with beady eyes.

“It’s a Breguet,” Sherlock explained. Nicky squinted harder.

“A what?

 _Pearls before swine,_ thought Sherlock, and had to clamp his jaw down hard upon a sudden hysterical laugh threatening to bubble past his lips. Eventually, he managed to steel himself and say, in a voice that only barely betrayed how truly sick he felt, “It’s a good make. Very, very good." He squeezed his eyes shut, desperately scraping the back walls of his mind for the specifications. "Double tourbillons, 18-karat gold, forty...um...forty-one jewels. You can get a lot for it in the right circles, Nick, I swear. It's worth a small fortune.”

Nicky pursed his lips, then shrugged; the watch disappeared into a pocket. Sherlock closed his eyes, panting with relief. It was just a watch, after all—even if it was a watch he’d inherited when he came of age, and Sherlock wasn't about to allow himself to think it hurt to barter it away like this, _for_ this. It was just a watch.

He hadn’t another, though, and with his phone taken and his bank account frozen Sherlock knew he was running out of viable payment options, unless he thought Nicky would be similarly interested in the trio of lock picks secreted in his right wrist hem or the spark lighter in his collar, and the likelihood of either scenario seemed woeful at best.

Perhaps his shoes, he thought miserably, and curled tighter on the mattress.

“You’ve bought yourself another few days, then, Mr. ‘Olmes,” Nicky announced, looking vaguely disappointed that Sherlock had managed to worm his way out of reprisal but satisfied enough with the exchange. He turned and trudged from the room, making a motion for Jamie to follow...who did, but only after throwing Sherlock a wink and an extremely vulgar hand gesture.

The moment they were gone, Sherlock expelled a shaky breath and tucked his head into his knees. He'd felt the familiar leaden paralysis clawing at the back of his throat for some long minutes now, but it was only when he was completely alone that he allowed his fingers to migrate to the nape of his neck and drill out a quick series of taps— _In_ _dex finger, ring finger, little finger, middle; index finger, ring finger, little finger, middle—_ over and over again along the curve of his spine until the tell-tale swarming stirring within him quieted, and he no longer felt the awful compunction to pace, or mutter, or rock, or whine.

The high, when it finally came, was blessed, sob-wrenching relief. But even there the remnants of dark things lingered, for the memory of the hollow hunger in Jamie’s eyes sat like a goblin on the cusp Sherlock’s consciousness, and made it difficult for him to lose himself in the haze.

 

∞

 

_Hello, you've reached the voice mail of Sherlock Holmes. If you are a potential client calling to schedule a consultation, please leave your name, contact information, and a description of your case in five sentences or fewer at the tone. Relevant facts only. Proper grammar only. Dull cases need not apply._

***Beep***

**Message 8**  
 **2011-12-26 Mo 18:06 UTC:**  
I shouldn’t have left. God, Sherlock, there. I said it. I shouldn’t have left. I shouldn’t have left. I shouldn’t have left. Are you happy now? Will you come home?

…Please, don’t do this to yourself. I can’t—I care about you more than anyone, all right? I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to you. Come home, Sherlock. I’ve been such an idiot. You have to forgive me. Please forgive me. You will forgive me, won’t you?

…Sherlock, are you even getting these messages? Are you even there? Please, Sherlock, please, please, please, please— ***Beep*** _We’re sorry; you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. Please check the number and try your call again._

**2011-12-26 Mo 18:07 UTC:**  
 _We’re sorry; you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. Please check the number and try your call again._

**2011-12-26 Mo 18:07 UTC:**  
 _We’re sorry; you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. Please check the number and try your call again._

**2011-12-26 Mo 18:08 UTC:**  
 _We’re sorry; you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. Please check the num—_

John rang off.

Carefully, fearing anything more strenuous might cause him to hurl it across the room, he sat his mobile down. His breathing was short and shallow, dangerously close to panic. His hands were trembling. 

_In, one…two…three… Out, one…two…three…_

_In, one…two…three… Out, one…two…three…_

But none of his old techniques were working, and just when John felt himself stretched to his absolute maximum he stood up and strode determinately from the room. Intentionally, he left his mobile behind on the couch, parting with it for the first time since Sherlock had vanished.

It was evening; the back hallway was dim and full of creeping shadows. John shuffled to a halt outside the closed door at the end of the passage, resting his head against the wood with a _thunk._ For a moment his fingers hovered gently on the outline of the handle, and then he gripped the brass and pushed the door ajar.

It was almost indecent, how smoothly it swung open on its hinges.

John couldn't say why he felt drawn to Sherlock’s room now. Even after a year and a half at Baker Street he could probably count all the times he’d been in it, _really_ been in it, on a single hand. And this, when he and Sherlock shared everything else—laptops and leftovers and mugs and living expenses and even a shower, once, after a particularly nasty case had resulted in a detective with several bruised ribs who couldn't hold himself upright well enough to wash in the stall, and John had offered to help and Sherlock had grudgingly agreed, and even though John (dressed down to his skivvies) got thoroughly soaked for his effort and wound up with soap in his eyes and a couple bruises of his own, he'd been more than happy to do it and it was all _fine_ _, Sherlock, just fine._

And it _was_ fine, pig kidneys in the crisper and violin cadenzas at three in the morning, interruptions and demands and stroppy sulks on the sofa, because John got his, too—got Sherlock to settle for half a sandwich and a game of Cluedo instead of prowling the flat in a fugue; dipped into the detective's primo hair mousse when his own bargain brand gel was running low; ate the lemon biscuits Sherlock would occasionally deign to buy and then subsequently hoard in the flour tin, hoping John wouldn't find them; even wore the man's best scarf out one day, on a lark, just because he felt like it, just because he wanted to know what it was like to strut about town with blue High Street cashmere draped around his neck.  

And so it went, the gradual meshing of property and purpose, until, quite without knowing how or why or exactly when it had happened, all the _John's_ and _Sherl_ _ock's_ had melded into a comprehensive _John and Sherlock's_ , and John supposed that at the end of the day that was all fine, too.

All this excepting, of course, Sherlock's room. That space had remained staunchly private, as off-limits now as it had been the day John moved in. Sherlock had never said as much, naturally, but John felt the unspoken boundary all the same, as strongly as if the detective had hung a 'Keep Out' sign upon the door.

Now, standing in the open doorway, John sensed he was being afforded the rather extraordinary opportunity to see a thing once more and also for the very first time. And still, for all that and all that was happening, he could think only that the compulsive neatness of the room had never before seemed so intimately startling.

John padded inside and lowered himself onto Sherlock's bed. Luxurious—it was the best word John could think of to describe it, because it was sinfully plush and well built and nearly twice the size of his own upstairs. John had never lain in it before, but it felt rather natural to do so now, and he didn’t afford much additional thought to toeing off his shoes and rolling the eiderdown quilt around himself until he was nestled deep in its folds, cocooned in the scents of lint and laundered linen and, beneath that, faintly, of Sherlock himself.

John didn’t rage that evening. He didn’t cry. But he did stay buried in Sherlock’s bed a long while, long after his heart rate dropped to normal and his breathing evened out, letting his mind drift in dust mote-dappled silence.

The framed poster of the Periodic Table was oddly consoling company.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, an update at last! Though I fear it's not the full chapter I promised you, just an interlude. But don't worry, if you look at this and think, "Oh no, it's so short--where's the rest?" This is actually just the front end of Chapter VIII, which is very nearly finished (only a couple more edits to go!) and will be around 8K words apart from the bit I've uploaded here.
> 
> And you got a chapter count in the bargain, so yay!


	8. Newton's Third Law

The building’s lobby was a post-modern spectacle. The floors were polished stone, the furnishings black leather, the people bustling through its gleaming, spacious halls crisp and unerringly professional. The decor consisted of several geometric arrangements of chairs and the occasional tastefully potted fern, all centered around a shallow fountain, where water babbled gently over smooth planes of dark marble like a shrine to clockwork efficiency. Overhead, a spaceship-like latticework of steel and glass enclosed the space, magnifying the sharp winter sun as it filtered down from the sky…

…and making John wince as he stepped inside off the street through the large rotating doors, hands stuffed in his pockets, fingers tingling from the cold.

The doctor did his best to act casual. He’d crashed a number of explicitly restricted venues in his time with Sherlock, after all, and, as the detective was always quick to remind him, there was no better disguise than confidence. _People gluttons for comfort, John_ , Sherlock had once explained. _They’ll let you get away with almost anything if you can convince them you’re just one more sheep in the herd._

And it was true, of course, though John had always found acting much more difficult than Sherlock, who at the drop of a hat seemed endlessly able to slip into whatever role best suited the moment's needs. John thought he’d been improving—pulling rank at Baskerville had been rather ingenious, he had to admit—and perhaps so, but he also knew he was still very much reliant on using Sherlock’s certitude as a touchstone in such situations, because today, on his own, try as he might to keep a straight face and steady gait, John couldn’t help but feel sorely out of place splashed up against the City building’s slick architecture, an outsider in a bomber jacket adrift a sea of pressed suits.

He was determined, though, and didn’t quaver as he marched directly to the center of the grand room and came to a stop in front of the large, arch-shaped welcome desk just beyond the fountain.

Sat behind it was a prim, youngish secretary with a prim ginger bob and prim, job-appropriate jewelry, typing away at a sunken computer with prim, deft strokes.

She paused her work and looked up as John approached, only momentarily stayed by his informal attire and then by the green and yellow blotches still faintly visible across his nose and right cheek—the five-day-old remnants of his and Sherlock’s violent altercation—before tact and training schooled her features into a polite smile. “May I help you, sir?” she asked.

John swallowed. “I’m here to see Mycroft Holmes.”

The woman blinked. “Who?”

“Mycroft Holmes?” said John. “I’m certain he works here…er…” He made a vague gesture at their vast surroundings. _“Somewhere.”_ The secretary turned to her computer, fingers flying across the keyboard in a flurry of soft clacks.

“Do you know his division title, sir?” she asked after a moment, scanning the results on her screen with a frown. John bit his lip.

“Erm…”

“His sector?” the woman offered, without looking up. “His superior officer? Can you repeat the name, sir? How is it spelled?”

“His name is _Mycroft Holmes_ ,” said John, through gritted teeth. “Holmes. H-O-L—” He broke off, not quite able to bring himself to spell it out fully, and ran a hand through this hair. “No, look, I know this is right. Mycroft Holmes. Look up _Mycroft Holmes.”_

“I’m not finding any record of such a person here, sir,” said the woman, her hands stilling as her shadowed eyes at last turned skeptical. “Are you certain you’re in the correct branch? The Cabinet Office is housed in several buildings throughout London—”

“No," growled John, cutting her off. "He's here. I know he’s here. I’ve met him here before.” That wasn’t entirely true—in fact, it had been Sherlock, not John, who had come to this place several months before to meet with Mycroft. But John had been in the cab, had seen the building and seen Sherlock disappear into its great glass doors—no, thought John, secretary be damned. This was right.

"I know he's here," John said again, edging closer without thinking, bringing a hand to grip the edge of the desk. The secretary's eyes flicked warily to the point of contact before returning to his face.

“I’ll ask you to remain calm, sir,” she warned.

“I am calm!” burst John.

“And just _what_ is going on here?”

Both John and the secretary swiveled towards the source of the interjection, and found themselves face to face with a severe, stout-faced woman. John had just enough opportunity to catch a quick glimpse of several important-looking badges swinging from the waistline of her skirt before she marched forward and placed a protective hand on the secretary’s shoulder. “Is there a problem here, Diane?” she asked, keeping her hawkish gaze fixed steadily on John. “Do I need to call for security?”

 _“No,”_ said John emphatically, opening his mouth to explain further, but when that only caused the woman’s frown to deepen, he backed off, and allowed the secretary to speak.

“He’s requesting a meeting with a Mr. Mycroft Holmes,” she explained. The older woman’s eyes flashed, and John’s heart leapt to see a spark of recognition in their steely depths.

_“Who?”_

“Mycroft Holmes,” said John, as levelly as he could, matching her gaze with all the determination he could muster. The woman’s lips pinched in at the corners. At last she turned back to the secretary.

“I’ll take care of this, Diane,” she said, motioning to relieve the younger woman of her post.

The secretary stood. “You’re sure, ma’am?” she asked, as the older woman swept into her seat. Two pairs of mascara-rimmed eyes flicked up to John.

“Quite.”

The secretary huffed, but obligingly sauntered off. When she was fully out of earshot, the older woman leant forward, drawing John into close confidence.

“Not many people know to ask for that name here,” she said, regarding him carefully. “Who are you? Who are you with?”

“My name is John Watson,” John told her. “And I’m not _with_ anyone. But I really must see him. It’s incredibly urgent."

It must have registered as an especially audacious request, because no sooner were the words out of John's mouth than the woman's sharp stare curled into something sardonic and strangely pitying, as if she couldn’t believe John was quite so simple, and that he had a better chance of success marching up to one of the Queen’s Guard and demanding an audience with Elizabeth herself. “Do you have an appointment?” she drawled.

“I don’t.”

The woman didn’t bother to look surprised. “Well, I’m sorry to inform you that Mr. Holmes is a very busy man, Mr. Watson.”

“Doctor,” John corrected her, squaring his shoulders and standing ramrod straight. “Doctor Watson. And yes, I’m perfectly aware he’s busy; I know him. I live with his brother.”

The woman’s expression didn’t waver, but it did then compact into something minutely more serious, and for the first time since moving into Baker Street John was glad to have his living arrangements misinterpreted. He could practically hear the gears turning in the woman’s head— _Colleagues? Partners? Lovers?_ —and just smiled in return, doing nothing to disabuse her assumptions. It was probably asking too much to hope for “husbands,” though John wouldn’t deny being Mycroft’s brother-in-law it if it meant gaining entrance to this citadel; honestly, some days it was practically the truth.

The woman’s eyes lingered on John’s face a moment longer, then fell back to the computer screen. She made a few quick taps at the keyboard, then stood up.

“I’ll see what I can do,” she said. “But you’ll understand I can’t make any promises. What you’re asking is highly irregular.”

John nodded. “I’ll wait as long as I need to.”

“If you’ll have a seat, then, sir,” the woman answered, in a dry tone that suggested he’d indeed be required to wait a very long time. She inclined her head towards the nearest grouping of leather chairs. “We’ll have someone collect you if and when your request is approved.”

John thanked her and made his way to the seats, choosing one that was out of the way and positioned along a wall so he could see what was happening in most of the room. He felt a tad ridiculous sitting down; no other chair was occupied. In fact, the seating seemed to be just as much a decoration as the ferns, set out solely to provide the illusion of normalcy. _Confidence,_ John reminded himself.  _Just another sheep in the herd._ He dug in for the long haul.

He waited over three and a half languishing hours.

He’d taken to marking the passage of time by the watching progression of the sun through the glass ceiling—and was on the verge of giving up and going home—when, quite suddenly, a placid “Dr. Watson?” snapped John from his stupor. Turning, John found the addressee a tall, suit-encrusted man, who instantly extended his hand as John pulled himself to his feet.

“I’m Dr. Watson,” said John, still shaking himself out of his daze as he returned the handshake. The man nodded.

“Very good. If you’ll come with me, then, sir.” He gestured to one of the main hallways leading off the lobby and started off at a clip.

They arrived in short order at a heavily fortified security checkpoint. John was patted down and then directed to walk through a metal detector and sign his name to a digital roster. His fingerprints were taken next, and finally he was presented with a bright yellow “VISITOR” tag, which his escort instructed him to clip to his coat and keep visible at all times.

It was quite a lot of fuss, thought John, sneaking a sideways glance at the escort as he stoically led the way down a twisting series of halls that continued on past the checkpoint. But it was only when they came to a lift and, as the doors opened, the man stepped aside and held his hand out to usher John in before him like a butler would his charge, that it dawned upon John the true degree of respect he was in fact being afforded. Connection to Mycroft carried some surprisingly powerful perks here, apparently, and not for the first time John found himself wondering just how high an office Sherlock’s brother actually held.

After the lift, John was shown through another labyrinth of hallways, then up another lift, and then, to his surprise, to a second security checkpoint, where his yellow tag was scanned before he was allowed through. At last he was led into a small anteroom, bare except for a wide set of double doors opposite the ones by which they had entered.

“Mr. Holmes will be with you shortly, sir,” the escort said to John, striding forward and using his ID badge to swipe open the heavy lock. It released the rightmost of the two doors, which the man held ajar and motioned for John to enter. “If you’ll just wait inside.”

John wasn’t aware just how strongly he’d anticipated the room beyond to look like a replica of the war room from _Dr. Strangelove_ until he stepped inside and found it wasn’t. In fact, it was surprisingly routine, little more than a large, glass-paneled boardroom, and not very different from the odd empty one Lestrade often dumped him and Sherlock into to fill out paperwork after a case, though John was certain the budget at New Scotland Yard didn’t make allowances for solid mahogany tables, or what appeared to be gold-leafed filigree on the crown moldings.

It was windowless, and empty; each of the thirteen chairs lining the long central table sat hunched in their places like so many hooded specters. It was also, John realized once the escort closed the door behind him, deathly, almost distractingly quiet, and the doctor found himself wondering if the walls beyond the glass were lined with lead.

Probably, he realized, and several feet of it. 

It was as John was contemplating its thickness, and the likelihood of the glass being shatter-resistant too, that the door at the other end of the room opened and Mycroft waltzed inside.

He looked as he had the last time John had seen him, and as he always did—smartly dressed and sublimely composed, and, despite a pleasant smile, positively _exuding_ the very condescending air of someone who would much rather be doing other, more important things with his time.

“John,” he said, sweeping a hand out to invite the doctor into the front of the room. "How lovely to see you. Please, have a seat.”

John sat, cautiously. Mycroft followed, settling into the chair opposite his across the vast mahogany table like an oversized bird of paradise.

“This is quite unexpected, Doctor,” he said. “I daresay I found myself surprised, to learn you'd come here today.”

Complete and utter bollocks—though John didn’t see much point in telling Mycroft what they both already knew. In fact, thought John, very little could be farther from the truth, considering that he'd been calling Mycroft at repeated intervals since shortly after Sherlock’s disappearance. He'd been hoping for the chance to parlay with Mycroft for advice and intervention in light of the circumstances, but after eleven unanswered calls and no response whatsoever to a barrage of texts of every length and level of emergency, John had realized that prodding the elder Holmes into action would require a more radical approach.

“Well, you know what they say,” he said, rolling the words around a bitter grin. “Desperate times and all that.”

The layers of Mycroft’s pretense—and his smile—dropped away. “And is that what you are, John?” he asked, arching a querulous brow. “Desperate?”

Ah, thought John, so they were to be straight to the point. Well, all the better—and two could play at that game. He leant forward in his chair, setting his frustration aside as well as he could and putting on his best, most earnest face.

“You have to help him, Mycroft," he said simply.

And Mycroft made no move at all, except to say, very slowly and very precisely: “I’m afraid that’s quite out of the question, Doctor.”

John sucked a breath through his nose, shifting a bit in his seat. He’d expected Mycroft to need some winning over, but he really hadn’t thought he’d be turned down at once, and so completely.

“You have to help,” he tried again. “You _have_ to. Sherlock, he’s—he’s out there on the streets somewhere, doing god knows what, and no one’s heard from him in _days—”_

“All choices he’s made of his own volition,” Mycroft interrupted lightly, peering down at his fingernails as if his recent pedicure was the most interesting thing in the room. His eyes drifted back to John’s. “Unless I’m quite mistaken?”

John licked his lips. “Well, no, but—”

“Then we have nothing left to discuss,” said Mycroft. “You should know, John, that I am not a man to make idle threats. I made myself very clear that afternoon in Baker Street—if Sherlock pursued his… _illicit_ proclivities, he would forfeit my protection in future. And that, unfortunate as it may be, is what he chose.” He sighed. “If my brother sees fit to disregard my advice, Doctor, I think he rather deserves to suffer the consequences.”

John frowned. For as nonchalant as Mycroft was acting, there was a subtle edge in his tone that suggested that today, deeper, more complex emotions were at play than appearances suggested. But it wasn’t anger in Mycroft's voice, or even exasperation. In fact, thought John, in sounded an awful lot like…

Oh. _Oh._

“He's hurt your feelings,” whispered John, flabbergasted by the puerility of the truth, and when Mycroft’s only response was to become very, very still, John knew he was right. Anger boiled up within him, swift and hot.

“That’s what this is about?” he spat. “Honestly? You are _honestly_ telling me you’re going to sit there and let Sherlock relapse because he bruised your ego? Because—what? He doesn’t appreciate enough the fact that you’re always hovering on the fringes of his life, watching and judging? Because he doesn’t appreciate _you_ enough? _Get over it!_ This isn’t a game, Mycroft, he could die out there! Doesn't that mean anything to you? _That your brother could die?!”_

“I've only ever had Sherlock’s best interest at heart, John,” answered Mycroft, rigid in his chair. “But give credit where it’s due: I warned him of this. I warned both of you.”

John was caught off guard. “I—Mycroft, you have to understand, I had no idea this was going to happen—”

“That is a shame, Doctor,” said Mycroft, standing up so suddenly and with so much force all the rest of John’s words skittered from his mouth, "for I’m not sure what more advance warning you could have _possibly_ required.” He looked suddenly angrier than John had ever seen him, a barely-contained rage surging just beneath the layers of his charcoal suit. His watch chain glittered dangerously where it dangled from his buttonhole.

“I made you aware early on in your acquaintanceship with my brother of Sherlock’s history with drugs, did I not?” Mycroft growled. “And I went out of my way to alert you to his triggers, to contact you at times I felt he might be especially susceptible to relapse. Tell me, John, was I naïve to believe I could rely on you for this? You, a soldier? A doctor? A man with a history of substance addiction in your own immediate family?” John opened his mouth to defend himself, but Mycroft bowled over him, intent to go right on speaking.

“So do not blame _me_ of inaction,” he seethed, “when I gave _you_ every weapon at my disposal to stave off this disaster. When I went so far as to sit you down and entrust you with highly personal, potentially opprobrious information concerning my brother’s past and then explicitly warn you what would happen should his delicate balances be upset. _Swift and catastrophic_ , I believe those were my exact words. Honestly, John, _what more did you need?”_

John was too shocked to slump in his chair. All traces of anger had abandoned him, leaving a hollow well in the pit of his stomach that was quickly filling with a wrenching horror that was part guilt, part terrible shame. “Don’t—don’t punish him for my mistakes, Mycroft,” he said at last, rasping out the words with what felt like the very last bit of air in his lungs. “I’d do anything for him—”

“Oh?” Mycroft’s lips bunched into a contemptuous frown. “You’ve done shockingly little to prove that as of late. In fact, I’d say you’ve done far more damage than good.”

“You don’t understand; everything’s become so complicated—!”

“I would say so,” Mycroft interrupted again, and John thought he’d very much like to fly across the table and punch the man in the face, he was so desperate to get a word in edgewise. “And I’ll have you know I have a much better understanding of this situation than you think, John Watson. Than perhaps even you yourself.”

John’s face fell forward into his hands. “Jesus, what do you want from me?”

“I want you to step up and take responsibility for your role in this affair! I want you to decide, once and for all, what my brother means to you—”

“He’s my _friend,”_ John moaned through his fingers.

“Just a friend?" Mycroft answered incredulously. "Nothing more? You’ll forgive me, Doctor, if I find that somewhat difficult to believe.”

“It’s none of your business!” John barked.

“Oh, but I disagree,” said Mycroft, leaning forward only incrementally but managing to fill the fair majority of the room with his stern presence. “Because isn’t that what this little exercise today is all about, really? Getting me to step in and pick up the pieces because neither you nor Sherlock is willing to face the truth?”

The answering silence hung thick with expectation, Mycroft making no great secret of anticipating John’s response. But when, over the course of the next half minute, the doctor only managed a walleyed gawk and a stuttering, wheezing kind of noise from somewhere in the vicinity of his lower throat, the elder Holmes sat back down, smoothing out the front of his already impeccably smooth waistcoat.

“Why are you still dating Mary Morstan?” he said at last. John’s head snapped up.

“How do you know about Mary? What do you mean _still?”_ But Mycroft didn't explain further, and finally John threw up his arms, sick of the runaround. “Perhaps because _I love her?_ Ever thought of that?”

“You love a woman whose calls you don’t return?” asked Mycroft, steady in the face of John’s caustic sarcasm. “How very odd.”

John balked, shocked once more into silence. Because that wasn’t fair; Mycroft had no business rummaging around his phone records, _no business at all._  

And because—and again, not that Mycroft had any right to know—John was normally a very courteous boyfriend. Something that happened only a handful of times in the span of the most recent several days was hardly grounds to disprove that. And really, thought John, how could he be blamed, when he was just so desperate for word from Sherlock—how could he be blamed when, scrambling for his mobile at the first sound of his ringtone, he was, maybe, just the tiniest bit shattered to find it was only Mary calling instead? Was he really so awful for thinking he’d rather not exchange holiday trivialities with her, when his mind was somewhere else entirely, was with Sherlock, run away, freezing and lost? What good would that do him, or her? After all, how could Mary understand what it felt like to drive one’s best friend from his home, back to drugs, and away from the people who were supposed to care about him? How could Mary understand that kind of failure? How could she understand Sherlock? How could she understand _John and Sherlock?_

How could _anyone?_

“I'll advise you to stop feeling sorry for yourself,” Mycroft interjected, jarring John back to attention. “Self-pity is incredibly unattractive, and useless besides. You’re not the only person who cares for Sherlock, nor the only one hurt by what has happened." He smoothed his vest again, glanced at his nails once more, crossed his arms over his chest. "You’ve made mistakes, certainly, but so he. The question now, John, is what exactly you intend to _do_ about it.”

John blinked, paling slightly as the familiar host of unresolved tensions flopped over in his gut like an upturned can of worms. But Mycroft seemed to have anticipated this response, for he quickly went on: “You see, Doctor, I'm simply asking for some small assurance in this matter, to know that if I deliver my brother back to you, it won't be for naught. I’d like to know you can provide for him in whichever way he requires providing, and that, ultimately, he will be safe in your hands.” Mycroft's eyes turned threatening. “Because I will not return him to you so that you may break him.”

That was the crux of it, then. John raked in a breath, and for a long while the two sat without speaking, Mycroft content to wait patiently as John gradually dredged an honest answer from the gummed up depths of his innermost psyche. When he spoke at last, his words were slow and carefully pieced together.

“You've asked me twice now what I could deduce about Sherlock's heart,” he began. "Both times I told you I didn’t know. I'm sorry to say I still don’t. Not really. I don’t know what Sherlock wants, what he’s capable of, or...or what _I’m_ capable of." John swallowed. "But I do know, Mycroft, at the very least, that Sherlock needs a _friend_. And even if my caring for him only ever means I’m just that, someone who’s just _there_ , to stand by him, and support him, and be supported by him, as a _friend_ , then so be it. That would be enough. That would be more than enough.”

“I’ve gone about this all wrong,” he went on. “I know I have. But I promise, Mycroft, if you do this, I’ll make things right. You have my word. Your brother has done more for me than anyone on earth; I owe him that much at the very least. And while I’d do anything to bring him home, this is beyond me. I can’t scour all of London looking for him. But you can. You can find him. Please.” John folded his hands in supplication. _“Please.”_

Mycroft regarded John in silence. John, heart pounding in his chest, hardly dared to breathe, frightened the slightest movement might give the elder Holmes cause to reject his plea. At last Mycroft stood, his face and eyes still a stony impasse. John quailed. Was bearing his soul not enough? What more could he possibly do? “I’m not above begging, Mycroft,” he croaked desperately. But Mycroft fluttered a hand.

“That will be quite unnecessary, Doctor,” he said. John's eyes went wide.

“So you’ll do it, then? Help?”

“I’ll have my people look into it,” Mycroft answered. John felt he could both laugh and break down in sheer relief.

“Thank you, Mycroft,” he breathed, as his eyes grew wet with emotion. “Jesus Christ, thank you, I can’t tell you how grateful I am…”

Mycroft frowned, looking slightly uncomfortable to be the focus of such affection. “I don’t enjoy platitudes, John,” he said, and John _did_ laugh at that, but then stood and wiped his eyes, collecting himself, eager not to spoil his good fortune.

“Well then,” he said, and Mycroft cleared his throat in response and motioned to the door.

“If you’ll excuse me,” he said. “I’m sure someone will be waiting to see you out.” John nodded, turning to leave. Mycroft watched him go, and watched as he paused at the door and, eyes shining once more, opened his mouth to speak.

“I’ll be in contact with you soon,” said Mycroft quickly, before he could. Thankfully, John seemed to understand, and tucked all the remainder of his sentiments down behind his tongue to settle instead for a final nod of thanks, and then turned the handle, and went.

 

∞

 

Mycroft was nursing a cognac and a headache when, 27 hours later, Sherlock was forcibly hauled into his parlor.

It took three men to effectively manage him, a significant feat considering the detective had been handcuffed and, judging by the way the fire in the hearth reflected in his glassy eyes, was not completely sober. Not that it kept him from struggling; indeed, he huffed and puffed and squirmed his captors’ grip, gnashing his teeth, and had apparently been at it some time—Mycroft could see he’d sustained a blow to the head, and from it a thick trail of blood had run from his temple to his chin, dried at the edges now to flakes of dark, ferocious red.

“We found him in Blackwall,” explained the lead man, tallest of the trio. He had the principal hold on Sherlock’s arms, and when Mycroft gave the sign he prodded the detective forward into the heart of the room. Sherlock took the opportunity to pivot and kick out at him, and was roughly shoved to his knees in return, landing with a grunt upon the rug at Mycroft’s feet. “We followed your directions to the letter,” the man continued, brushing his hands on his outer coat, clearly glad to at last part from his troublesome quarry. “It was just as you said it’d be.”

Mycroft stood up slowly from his club chair, peering down at his brother over the rim of his snifter. “I'm glad to hear it.”

“He put up a bit of a struggle, sir,” said the second man, hovering in the background just behind the first, speaking up as Mycroft’s eyes flit silently over the silver glinting at Sherlock's wrists. “The restraints were necessary, unfortunately. For his own safety.”

“Undoubtedly,” mused Mycroft. But even in the flickering firelight his gaze didn’t miss the bruise slowly purpling on the man’s left cheek, nor Sherlock’s two bloodied knuckles where they were bound at his back. “Now, if you’d be so kind as to remove them.”

The trio hesitated, glancing nervously from one to the other. At last the leader stepped forward. “With all due respect, sir,” he said, “I’m not sure that’s wise—"

“Luckily that is not for you to decide, what is _wise,”_ Mycroft interjected coldly, “seeing as how you are in _my_ employ and standing in _my_ home and the subject in question is _my_ brother.” His expression was imperious, unflinching. _“Remove them._ ”

The man ducked his head, abashed. “Of course, sir, my apologies, sir,” he muttered, and quickly knelt to unlock the cuffs. Sherlock hissed as they fell away, rubbing his sore skin with the pads of his thumbs and throwing a feral snarl in the man’s direction as he stood and backed away.

“Thank you,” said Mycroft. “Now, leave us.” Again all three men looked ready to protest, but a sharp look from their superior had them thinking better of it and snapping to attention instead. The leader offered Mycroft a short salute before following his colleagues from the room and closing the door behind them.

They’d been gone hardly a second when a rough chuckle crept over the crackling of the fire. Mycroft’s eyes fell to Sherlock, surprised to see his face split open in a wide, sottish smile.

“How you could find anything about this _funny,”_ the elder Holmes said darkly, “is absolutely beyond me.”

“Oh, come off it, Mycroft,” Sherlock wheezed, his speech slower than normal and noticeably slurred. “Don’t act like you’re not enjoying this.” He lifted his chin a bit higher, as if to grant Mycroft a better look. “Well," he said. "Go ahead then.”

Mycroft frowned. “What on earth are you talking about?”

 _“Gloat,”_ spat Sherlock, his smile hardening into something ugly. His lips pulled back, revealing blood in the grooves of his teeth. “That's what you want, isn't it? So get it over with. I know you’re just _dying_ to.”

“This is hardly the time.”

“Oh, but I think it is!” countered Sherlock, shuffling forward until he and Mycroft were just feet apart. “Tit for tat, isn’t that how it’s always been with us, _brother mine?_ And look at me now, strung-out and on my knees; you couldn’t ask for more. So come on, Mycroft!” He threw his arms wide, tipping his head back. “Revel in your victory!”

Mycroft wrinkled his nose, appalled by the display. “This is pathetic,” he muttered.

“You’re right,” Sherlock answered, and laughed. “It is. It _really_ is.” He pulled himself to his feet.

“And just where do you think you’re going?”

“I’m leaving,” Sherlock said, turning for the door. “Now. You can’t keep me here.”

“Take a step out of this house, Sherlock Holmes, and I will call the police.”

Sherlock froze, indignant. “You wouldn’t _dare_.”

“Why not?” said Mycroft, recovered enough now to arch a brow and touch his brandy to his lips. “By all rights I should—possession of Class A substances and possession with intent to sell are very serious crimes. You deserve to be hauled before a magistrate and sentenced accordingly.”

Sherlock’s eyes widened, the angles of his body tightening as his insouciance gave way to a base note of fear. “I never sold a thing, Mycroft!” he growled. “I never _intended_ to sell a _thing!_ You know that! I know you know that!”

“In which case I can only hope you find yourself a very good solicitor,” answered Mycroft tersely, "because I suspect my men found enough evidence on you tonight to make a strong case otherwise, and I will not hesitate to allow them to testify on the crown’s behalf.”

Sherlock’s mouth fell open. Mycroft watched him wrestle with his predicament for a moment, slowly swirling the amber liquid in his hand in neat, measured revolutions. 

“Consider your situation, brother,” he murmured, careful not to avert his eyes from Sherlock. “Things are different than they were a decade ago; you have so much more to lose. You have a prominent career now, have a name that has been sensationalized by the Internet and television and little mentions everywhere from the _Telegraph_ to _The Guardian_ to _The Sun_ —indeed, brother, you’ve become quite the local celebrity.” His voice acquired a knowing, deliberate tone. “And you know how the courts just _love_ to make examples of wayward celebrities…”

Sherlock gaped, looking halfway caught between fainting and exploding. His lips worked, but his usual powers of eloquence had apparently deserted him, for in the end he managed only a single spiteful word, set loose from his tongue like an adder’s hiss: _“Bastard.”_

Mycroft shrugged, tipping the remainder of his brandy into the wry curve of his mouth. “It’s your choice, brother.”

“It’s blackmail!” protested Sherlock. “It’s _blackmail!”_ When Mycroft didn’t respond, just set his empty snifter on the nearby sideboard and headed for the door, the detective’s voice turned desperate. “Why are you even doing this!?” he screamed, panting with the effort of his shouting. “You said you wouldn’t interfere if I relapsed!”

Mycroft paused at the threshold and sighed, looking a little disappointed, as if he were having to explain something very elementary to someone very dull. “I did say that,” he said. "But, wouldn’t you know, someone’s gone and changed my mind.”

Sherlock’s face pulled into a hateful grimace. “Who?”

“Oh, really, brother,” Mycroft chided. “Whom do you _think?_  After all, you only have _one."_

Mycroft didn’t wait long enough to savor the spark of connection in Sherlock's eyes. But he did, after turning to sweep briskly from the room, hear the distinct _thud_ of knees hitting Turkmen rug behind him, and left feeling contented with the knowledge that his point had been duly received all the same.

 

∞

 

Four minutes and thirty-seven seconds later, the parlor door swung open again.

Sherlock looked up, and found himself greeted by a sturdy, olive-skinned woman he’d never seen before—a hired nurse, judging by her orthopedic shoes and the large medical bag she had slung across her shoulder. For a moment her dark eyes swept the room, taking careful assessment of her patient still collapsed numbly on his knees upon the floor, before she bustled forward, setting her bag down with the soft, quiet authority indicative of the terminally unflappable. She held a hand out to Sherlock.

“My name is Sampada,” she said as he used it to pull himself to his feet, and Sherlock instantly hated her, hated the solidness in her step and hated the precision in her manner, and hated especially the fact that she didn’t seem put off in the slightest by the sight or smell of him, because after six days of living in a dilapidated warehouse with but a single set of clothes and no access to running water, he was by any estimation undeniably filthy.

But, Sherlock didn’t fight. Because loath as he was to admit it—and he’d die, just absolutely _die,_ before admitting it aloud—it felt good to be in a place that was lit and warm and filled with all the amenities a modern home should have...even if that home had the unfortunate distinction of belonging to his brother. And so, when Sampada placed a hand on Sherlock's shoulder and marshaled him from the parlor and upstairs into a gleaming tiled bathroom, he acquiesced, and didn’t argue when she proceeded to strip him of his clothes and guide him into a steaming bath where she scrubbed him down as he swayed gently in her hands, trying to focus on the temperature of the water and _not_ on the fact that the tail end of whatever he’d taken last was slowly wearing off. Instead, Sherlock cataloged sensory input: the brush of her fingers in his hair as she washed it, the rake of the comb against his scalp as she checked him over for lice, the sweep of the towel she used to pat him dry, the small points of direction offered by her hands as she helped him into fresh clothes.

He was presented with a toothbrush next, and then a razor, though he'd barely finished his left cheek before his hands began shaking too violently to accurately handle the blade, and in the end he wound up relinquishing it to Sampada, who sat him on the toilet seat and finished the task with the same infuriating efficiency she seemed determined to complete everything else. 

It rankled Sherlock horribly, but he let it go, grown exhausted by that point and even more so by time they reached the bedroom. He all but collapsed on the bed—too firm, too short, too many pillows, duvet pattern florid in a way that made him want the head of Mycroft’s interior decorator impaled on a stake—and yet it was so categorically improved from what he'd had over the past week Sherlock could do little but sigh as he sank into it, watching blearily as Sampada turned the lamp on the nightstand to its lowest setting before corralling him onto his back to draw a quick series blood samples from his arm and hook an I.V. drip into the back of his hand.

“You’re dehydrated,” she explained as he glanced questioningly to the hanging bag. “And it will help curb the nausea.”

Sherlock doubted it; his stomach was already threatening to tie itself in vengeful knots. But still he didn’t argue, just watched as the nurse placed a bedpan within reach and a small wireless remote by the lamp.

“Use this to call if you need me,” she said. “I’ll be just downstairs.” Her soft voice flowed over him like honey, and though Sherlock hated it, there was no denying its strangely somnolent effects. He managed a weak nod before letting his eyes drift shut, and Sampada clicked off the light.

 

∞

 

Sherlock spent the better part of the next eighteen hours racked with roving, obfuscatory pain. Sleep, when he could manage it, was fitful, filled with feverish colors and disturbing, half-remembered dreamscapes, and matched in unpleasantness only by the times he spent awake, when he could do little but shiver and sob and vacate his stomach again and again until his abdominal muscles began to cramp. The sweating was intolerable. The cravings were worse. And god, he _itched;_ he spent hours mindlessly scratching his injection sites until Sampada discovered what he was doing and bandaged the better half of his arm with gauze, threatening to cut Sherlock’s nails if he so much as thought about removing the dressings.

Sherlock wished he had the energy to be snappish with her, but the truth was he barely had the energy to function. His entire body was in a state of rebellion, and it ate up everything, including his resolve. By the time Mycroft appeared in the doorway bearing a bowlful of broth alongside a single silver spoon, Sherlock felt so entirely miserable he didn’t even protest when his brother set the tray on his lap and instructed him to eat—even when it became clear Mycroft intended to stay and personally see to it that Sherlock finish his meal.

“The nurse is too rough,” Sherlock muttered, after spending exactly eight minutes delicately swallowing as many spoonfuls of soup and another ten grudgingly contemplating the ninth. “Send for another.”

Mycroft glanced up from his paper, angling it slightly to more easily see his brother.

“Sampada’s credentials are impeccable, Sherlock,” he said, in a way Sherlock could tell actually meant _Stop complaining and eat._ “She came with the very highest recommendations. Exceedingly professional.”

“Exceedingly _discreet_ , you mean,” growled Sherlock. Mycroft just flicked his paper, pointedly turning his attention back to the news, and the two settled back into uneasy silence.

“I contacted John,” Mycroft said a good while later, after several minutes of Sherlock’s toying with the end of his spoon had made it clear the detective had abandoned all intentions of finishing the remainder of his lunch. “He asked after you, naturally, and I gave him what news I could. He also asked to visit; of course, I convinced him you were still too ill for company. Though he very much wants to see you, Sherlock. He wanted me to tell you he wants to see you.”

Sherlock’s lips drew into a tight, angry line. “No.”

Mycroft tutted, folding the paper away. “Don’t be obstinate, brother…”

_“I said NO.”_

Mycroft uncrossed his legs, swiveling to face Sherlock directly. “And just where will this end, then?” he asked. “Do you plan to ever return home? Or will you simply hide in my guest bedroom dithering for the remainder of your days?” Sherlock snarled, but his convalescent pallor made his growing blush all the more conspicuous.

“I am not _dithering,_ ” he ground out. “I do not _dither.”_  Restlessly, he reclaimed the spoon and dragged it hard across the bottom of his bowl. 

“Don't think abusing the porcelain will distract me from your lying,” told him Mycroft with a smirk. Sherlock sneered.

_“Prove it.”_

Had the topic at hand been even fractionally less serious Mycroft would have smiled. “Your blood work arrived this morning,” he said, reaching into his breast pocket for the opened envelope. “I had the lab express deliver your report. Care for the results? They made for some very illuminating breakfast reading.” Sherlock’s spoon froze mid-drag.

“The STI screen came back negative,” Mycroft informed him, shaking open the folded papers with a small flourish. “So I believe a hearty congratulations are in order to start, though of course you'll need to be retested in a couple of weeks. Alas, if only the results of the drugs scan were equally commendable.” He cleared his throat. “Now, to begin…heroin. Yes, well, entirely expected, but it goes on; here we have oxycodone. And morphine. And temazepam. And fentanyl—interesting, I believe that’s a new one for you?”

“It’s an impressive assortment, considering you were gone such a short time,” he continued, running an eye down the remainder of the list before refocusing his attention on his brother. "And yet, Sherlock, for this entire pharmacopeia, I don't see a single mention of cocaine. In fact, barring trace amounts of nicotine, there were no stimulants in your blood at all. Now. Why. Is. That.”

Mycroft didn’t give Sherlock the leniency of pretending it was a question. The detective’s hand was clasped around the spoon in a white-knuckled fist, his jaw clenched with rage. Mycroft could see the effort with which he was trying to keep from shaking.

“This was no relapse, Sherlock,” Mycroft said then. “It wasn’t indulgence. It certainly wasn't entertainment. It was _diversion._ It was  _escape_ , chasing oblivion, _running away,_ and _that’s_ how I know you’re lying, brother, because I have your tox report here in my very hands—!”

A clatter rang out through the room as Sherlock sprang from his bed, sending the lunch tray and all its contents smashing to the floor. He looked overwrought and desperate, determined to bolt, and even managed a few steps towards the door before dizziness and headache overtook him and he stumbled, arms flailing uncoordinatedly at his sides. Mycroft caught him the moment before he fell.

“Don’t touch me!” Sherlock spat, hissing at the contact, but he was already panting, a fresh layer of sweat beading at his hairline, and he didn’t do much in protest but grimace and growl as Mycroft silently drove him backwards into bed again.

“You need to rest,” said Mycroft firmly. Sherlock glowered, wiping away perspiration and a few strands of hair from his eyes. Mycroft looked at him. 

“This is foolishness, brother," he said. 

Sherlock’s lip curled. “No it’s not.”

“Oh?” asked Mycroft, setting his hands on his hips. “To ignore the blatantly obvious? To _deny_ yourself at whatever cost? Come now, Sherlock, you know better than that.”

Sherlock’s eyes narrowed. “You told me—”

“I told you to be careful!” interrupted Mycroft crossly. “I told you to consider what you were getting yourself into! I did _not_ tell you to destroy yourself for stubbornness and fear! And that is what you are doing, Sherlock, killing yourself in bits and pieces to avoid what makes you uncomfortable!”

The blush was creeping into Sherlock’s cheeks again. “Stop it,” he muttered, looking distinctly ill at ease. Mycroft ignored him.

“To avoid the _unknown_.”

_“Shut up.”_

“To avoid _John_.”

Sherlock bristled at the mention of the name. “I am not!”

“You are!” spat Mycroft, his own hackles rising. "Because at last, Sherlock, at long last, you have discovered how much he means to you! And though he has resisted your attempts to turn him way with a tenacity I can only say is admirable, I now fear John’s apparently indelible patience will endure far longer than _you_ will be able to, brother, in these self-destructive efforts to erode it! You’re an idiot to believe otherwise!”

Mycroft huffed, stepping back to impulsively adjust the tie at his neck. He wasn’t accustomed to such passionate outbursts; he’d forgotten just how intensely _physical_ they could be. But there was something combative in Sherlock’s demeanor—hands curled deep in the bedclothes, hunched as though braced to pounce, glaring at him from beneath that fringe of chronically unruly curls—that had him running uncharacteristically hot at the collar.

“Think carefully about what I’m saying to you,” he said, fingers at his cufflinks now. “Do not believe I will sit idly by and watch this happen again.”

Sherlock’s eyes flashed. “Oh, like you sat _idly by_ eight years ago?!”

Mycroft paused, mouth tightening at the change in subject and feeling suddenly as though he’d grasped a very unwelcome tiger by the tail. “We’ve…been over this before,” he said slowly. “I did what I had to, you know that. You left me with no other option—”

“You had _no right…”_

“I had every right!”

“To have me _sectioned?!”_ cried Sherlock, off the bed again before Mycroft could stop him, before Mycroft had even finished his sentence. He crowded into Mycroft’s space. “To have me arrested and shut away?!”

Mycroft frowned. “I won’t abide theatrics on this subject, Sherlock,” he murmured, warning dripping low and blistering from his lips. “It was not a sectioning. You were arrested because you were found in breach of your ASBO—”

“Which the police only discovered because of _your_ interfering,” finished Sherlock, “and which you then used to leverage me into a loony bin! How is that any different from involuntary commitment?!”

“You were placed in rehabilitation, not an asylum,” said Mycroft curtly. “And the _difference_ is that unlike the mentally ill you made _repeated conscious decisions_ that necessitated such measures.” He took a stabilizing breath, and gingerly raised his hands to Sherlock’s heaving shoulders. “You needed rehab, little brother.”

“Don’t tell me what I needed!” screamed Sherlock, knocking Mycroft’s hands away and belting out the words with raw, unrepentant fury. “You don’t know! You have no idea what it was like!”

“I know that it was difficult—”

“NO YOU DON’T! YOU DON’T KNOW!”

The volume of Sherlock’s voice caught Mycroft off guard. Startled, he moved to take a step back, but Sherlock’s pale hand latched on to his arm before he could make a clean retreat.

“Did you know they tied me to my cot, Mycroft?” the detective hissed, eyes turned disturbingly bright. “Let me scream to empty rooms until my voice was hoarse? Force-fed me when I refused to eat?” Mycroft couldn’t help but flinch slightly at that, and Sherlock’s face twisted in a spiteful grin. “Yes,” he whispered, thin fingers trembling with the effort of holding his brother in place. "The truth’s always so much _messier_ than what one reads in a pamphlet, isn’t it?”

“Do you know what it is to feel like you’re losing your mind, brother?” Sherlock breathed. “To want to crawl out of your own skin? To have no control over what you are? But how would you; you never even bothered to visit!” He chuckled mercilessly, a little desperately. “Too busy off being a great bloody success?” he asked. “Too busy making everyone proud? Too busy protecting the illustrious Holmes name from the fact that Sherlock was an addict, that Sherlock was _mad?”_ His nails dug impossibly deeper into Mycroft’s shirtsleeves. "Was that it, Mycroft?! Were you _embarrassed_ of me?! Were you _ashamed?!”_

And at last Mycroft could stand no more. He stomped his foot on the floor, and the walls resounded with his sharp retort as it filled the room: _“My god, Sherlock, at least one of us was!”_

And Sherlock, for all his fury, staggered back, stunned.

His face seemed to pinch in from all sides, turn sallow and sickly, rage morphing almost instantly into something far more complex, and truer, revealing just the slightest edge of the hollow and broken inner self Mycroft knew he’d spent a lifetime learning to keep locked away. The entire transformation took barely a moment; with a grunt Sherlock stumbled away, releasing his hold on Mycroft’s arm. He seemed determined to look every which way but his brother’s eyes.

Mycroft ground his teeth, wanting to kick himself. How had this happened? He hadn’t meant to be cruel. But Sherlock—he always had to _push_ , didn’t he, always had to nudge things that were better left alone? Always had to twist that damnable knife?

“Get out.”

“Sherlock, I—”

But Sherlock was beyond conciliation. “Get out,” he repeated, pointing to the door, and when the elder Holmes hesitated, he said it again, louder: “Get out, Mycroft! Get out, get out, _get out, GET—OUT!”_

A flash of movement was all the warning Mycroft had before the soup bowl burst to pieces against the wall just millimeters from his head. It was followed almost immediately by the clang of the spoon, and Sherlock swooped to the floor a second time; Mycroft barely managed to escape before the tray went zinging into the door.

 

∞

 

It was a full day later before Mycroft dared to venture back to the guest room.  
  
When he entered he found Sherlock sitting upright in bed, propped against a mound of pillows with his shoulders loosely draped in a burgundy brocade housecoat. He held very still as Mycroft closed the door gently behind him, keeping his gaze glued to the wide bay window at his left, specifically the lower corner where the drapes had been pulled away to reveal a tiny glimpse of the outdoors. The pitter-patter of rain just beginning to fall formed a percussive counterpart to the cold grey light filtering in through the thick panes.

Steeling himself, Mycroft proceeded gently across the carpet, stopping at the bedside. Sherlock did not turn his head.

“Look at me.”

As Mycroft expected, he was ignored. He waited. It took several minutes, but at last Sherlock’s eyes slid sideways, catching his own.

“What do you want?”

Mycroft sighed. Sherlock looked so incredibly young, he thought. Looked like a multitude of ages. Fatigue and illness did that do people, of course, but this was something more, something ineffable in the canted light of the room that had a twenty-something peeking out from the sprawl of Sherlock’s posture, a three-year old sitting in the pout of his lips, a teenager looming in the way his hair had never really tamed over the years, just become more proficiently managed. It was silly, but, looking at him now, Mycroft was struck with the bizarre notion that he was in fact looking at all the Sherlocks he’d ever known at once, an amalgamation of snippets of time overlaid into a single convergent whole.

Sherlock rustled impatiently in the sheets. “Spit it out, Mycroft, or leave me alone.”

Mycroft cleared his throat.

“If you’re hoping for an apology,” he began, “then I'm afraid this will only disappoint you. I shall not apologize for speaking the truth. I _was_ ashamed of you. I still sometimes am. I often find you irritating, and immature, and frustrating, and…and _yes,_ Sherlock, I admit, I have spied on you, and I fret about you, because I don’t entirely trust you and because there are times I consider you a danger to yourself.” He took a deep breath. _“But,_ even so, there is nothing wrong with you. _At all_. _”_

Sherlock blinked, and Mycroft swallowed, shifting heavily on his feet. “There’s nothing about you I would change, Sherlock,” he said then, rather too quickly. “You can hate and blame and believe the very worst of me, but I will _not_ have you believing that. Do you understand? You are not mad, you have never been mad, and _there—is—nothing—wrong—with—you.”_

To Mycroft’s absolute horror, he found himself fighting the impulse to dab his temples with his handkerchief by the time he finished speaking. It was a realization made all the more humiliating, he thought, by the fact that he was also effectively out of breath, and a bit sticky in his suit, and by Sherlock’s dark, inscrutable stare, which in the course of his speech had adopted an uncanny penetrability the elder Holmes found distinctly unnerving.

 _Vulnerable,_ he realized, after contriving and dismissing another four perfectly plausible (though increasingly elaborate) explanations for the singular discomfiture. _This is what it is to be vulnerable._

Ah. Well. In that case Sherlock ought to be honored; it wasn’t very often the British Government wore his heart on his sleeve.

It was hard to keep very cavalier about it, though, as the seconds stretched to minutes with no response whatsoever from Sherlock. He didn’t speak, hardly seemed to breathe, and Mycroft was on the verge of retracting it all when at last Sherlock—until that point so incredibly still—nodded. It was a nearly imperceptible movement, just a minute jerk of the neck, but for Mycroft its significance was monumental; he had the very distinct impression of ropes being cut, of latches thrown open. It felt as though something very ugly had been swept from the room.

Sherlock must have felt it too, because in a single whoosh of breath a fair majority of the tension drained from the set of his shoulders, and he didn’t protest when Mycroft took the much needed liberty of lowering himself into the nearby chair to join him in staring out the window.

“Emotions are complex, troublesome things,” Mycroft said then, keeping his eyes pinned safely to the dour winter evening unfolding beyond the glass. “I'll admit, expressing and intuitively understanding them is not a skill that comes easily to either of us. But let’s not then pretend we are so untouched by the language of the heart that we do not feel at all.” He sighed. “In spite of what I’ve told you before, Sherlock, the truth of the matter is that it is a rare thing in life to be cherished the way John Watson cherishes you. And there is no shame in that, nor in wanting to reciprocate any such feelings yourself.”

Mycroft’s words dropped off into silence. Shadows lengthened; outside, the rain continued its steady fall. They sat for nearly twenty minutes before there was a ghost of sound from upon the bed, and Mycroft glanced over to see that Sherlock’s attention had fallen to the object he'd nearly forgotten in his hands.

“Ah, yes,” he said, holding it up. “I’ve brought you a book, if you’re interested.”

Sherlock scanned the title and scoffed. “I’m not a child, Mycroft.”

“Stevenson is a classic author widely admired by readers of all ages," Mycroft answered. 

“That’s Great-Grandfather’s copy,” observed Sherlock then, his eyes quickly scouring over the tome’s yellowed pages, the red block letters stamped into its spine. “I suppose next you’re going to tell me you’ve kept all of Aunt Eleanor’s household silver, too? Cousin Reginald’s musket collection?”

“Sampada has informed me that auditory distraction may ease your recuperation,” said Mycroft archly. A small but mischievous grin unfurled on Sherlock’s lips.

“In other words, you’ve come to read me a story.”

“On the advice of a medical professional!” Mycroft amended, barely suppressing a twitch. “The fact that I’ve brought this _particular_ copy with me is a complete and utter triviality.” He crossed his arms, arranging his face into the very model of bland indifference. “Unless, of course, you’d rather I not…”

Far from sending him away, though, Sherlock’s grin just spread wider, and he shimmied deep into the bedclothes, pulling the sheets to his chin. Mycroft made a tacit noise of approval and arranged himself more comfortably in his chair. Gently, conscious of its aged spine, he cracked the book open.

But not before first extracting a thin pair of reading glasses from his breast pocket and sliding them up his nose.

 _“Not a word,”_ he quickly warned Sherlock, who at the appearance of the spectacles had gone from looking casually smug to outright vainglorious. “Not a _single_ word. Are we clear, Sherlock Holmes?”

Sherlock nodded, though the exultant gleam in his eyes didn’t fade. _Tit for tat indeed,_ mused Mycroft, though he hardly thought it his fault that old Victorian type was so inconveniently small, and besides—and here he allowed himself just the slightest personal indulgence—there were far worse things in the world than Sherlock finally learning he was longsighted, if, in the end, it helped Sherlock keep safe and well.

“All right then,” he said, licking his finger and flipping to the first page of the text. “If we’re quite over _that_ , let’s begin. Chapter One: The Old Sea-dog at the Admiral Benbow…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t know why I imagine Mycroft living in a massive Edwardian manor compressed into the size and shape of a Mayfair row house, but god, I really, really do. 
> 
> And in case you’re wondering, the book Mycroft brings to read to Sherlock at the end there is _Treasure Island_ by Robert Louis Stevenson, because of course it is, and because it just wouldn’t be fair for me to go eight chapters and over 60k words without giving you guys at least a smidgen of fluff. 
> 
> Oh, and x-rated activities in the next chapter. So, you know. Stay tuned :D


	9. Flash Point

“Oh! Oh! _Oh!”_

Mrs. Hudson’s startled exclamations echoed up the stairs from the ground floor, snapping John from his telly-induced stupor. Instinctively he leapt from his chair, scattering the remote control and half the sandwich he’d been colorlessly gnawing at for the past hour, and bolted for the door. Judging by the volume of her cries, John's immdiate thought was that the landlady was in danger, but he'd hardly made it down the first flight of steps before deciding instead that no, these specific _“oh, oh, ohs”_ sounded more pained than terrified, and that maybe Mrs. Hudson had finally taken that tumble, and thrown her troubled hip at last.

He was already calculating precisely how to lift and handle her by the time he rounded the stairs, pivoting on his heel—

And then stopped short, for _there was Sherlock._

He was standing just inside the front door, dewy from the evening's mist and gathered up Mrs. Hudson's arms. He hadn't made it more than a couple steps into the building before being ambushed, apparently, and though he looked more chuffed than annoyed at her fawning, he also looked pale, and worn, and thinner by a hair; for the first time in John’s memory Sherlock's thick wool coat seemed more necessity than fashion statement. John swallowed, tightening his hand on the railing as his heart jumped in his throat. Neither Mrs. Hudson nor Sherlock seemed to have noticed his presence.

“Oh, Sherlock,” the landlady cooed, running her hands lovingly, if a bit frantically, across his cheeks and shoulders and through the fringes of his hair. "Just look at you. Just _look_ at you. Where on earth have you been?” Suddenly serious, she gripped his face tightly between her palms, staring him straight in the eye. “You’ve had us all deathly worried, young man. I’ll have you know I’m very cross.”

Sherlock considered this a moment, then glanced down to her stained and flour-dusted apron.

“You’ve been baking,” he mumbled, mouthing the squashed-sounding words as best he could from between her hands. “Biscuits? Mm—no. Pies. Mincemeat pies for John and...” He cocked his head to the side and sniffed the air. “...Lemon tart for me.” He grinned. “So, not so very cross after all.”

“Oh,” blustered Mrs. Hudson, releasing Sherlock's face to cuff him on the arm in reprimand. "You really have no manners at all, have you, Sherlock Holmes?” But it was love and relief in her voice, not anger, and when she scooped Sherlock up into another embrace he returned it, looking uncharacteristically yet earnestly tender as he slid his arms around her waist and allowed Mrs. Hudson to lay her head against his chest.

Under different circumstances John might have thought it almost sweet, seeing them standing together like that, but soon enough Sherlock began fidgeting where he stood; Mrs. Hudson, though, seemed determined to not let go. At last Sherlock sighed and slid his eyes upwards, searching out and finding John where he was still standing rigid on the stairs.

“Hello, John,” he said.

Mrs. Hudson jumped in surprise, unlatching herself from Sherlock’s body to whirl about and extend a breathless smile to the doctor. “Oh, John," she warbled, "look, Sherlock’s come home. Isn’t it wonderful?” Her expression was bright and warm, almost tearful, but when she realized John's obvious apprehension she turned scolding. “I'll have you stop that gaping and come down here this instant,” she snapped, putting one hand on her hip as set the other flapping to beckon him to the ground floor. “Sherlock is back and we're all very happy, and you’re going to give him a proper welcome, John Watson, if it kills me."

"I-I..." John spluttered, but his legs were already moving, descending the stairs with stilted gait as if snared in the clutches of a dream. Satisfied, Mrs. Hudson returned to her fussing over Sherlock, arranging his scarf just so and smoothing out the wrinkles in his coat.  
  
John drew to a halt a few feet away. "I...er..." he croaked, staring haplessly at them both, and then pulled himself together enough to give a jerky little nod. "Sherlock." 

“John,” Sherlock answered, stiff-necked now, staring back and looking just as lost.  
  
"Oh _honestly,"_ burst Mrs. Hudson, and it seemed at last that she had had enough. Throwing up her arms in exasperation, she grabbed both men by the wrists and tugged them together until they were standing just inches apart. “Never in all my years have I _ever_ met a pair more stubborn than the two of you," she said as they stumbled forward. "You'd put an old woman in her grave with this nonsense, you really would! I may not be your housekeeper, or your mother, but I simply won't stand for this any longer." She shot a final look of reprimand at them both, and then, as John and Sherlock stared dumbly on, forcibly laced their fingers together so that they were standing hand in hand.

 _“There,”_ she said, sighing deeply and standing back to admire her handiwork. “Isn’t that better?” But neither man seemed capable of answering; John’s throat had dried to a veritable desert, and Sherlock looked flabbergasted past the point of speech.

Mrs. Hudson seemed too gleeful to recognize their silence as anything but acquiescence. Choked up and eyes glistening, she gave a little cry of joy and pulled them into a tight hug. “Oh, my boys,” she squealed. “My lovely, lovely boys." She gripped them tightly for a moment, then pulled away. "Now, up you get,” she said, pushing them in the direction of the stairs. “I’ll bring the treats up when they’re finished cooling.”

“I, uh, hang on—” John stuttered after her, slightly alarmed at the turn of events, but Sherlock was already marching for the steps, dragging the flummoxed doctor along. John grit his teeth but couldn't find the nerve to protest, and when they made it to the first floor he nudged the door open, letting Sherlock enter first. They crossed the threshold, then stopped; John's stomach did an unpleasant little flop in his gut. “Well,” he muttered, at a total loss for anything better to say. "That's it, then. Welcome home.”

Sherlock hummed a spiritless response, scanning the kitchen as if to take in all the minute changes that had occurred in his ten-day absence. John couldn’t imagine what he was seeing; to him, everything seemed little more than dark reminders of the trying circumstances of the past three weeks. There was the table, where Sherlock had shot up…the refrigerator, where John had shattered the mug after losing his temper…the sitting room floor, where Sherlock had busted John’s nose so badly the bruises were only now mostly faded. The violin, the beetles in their cases, the hooks by the door, the windowsill. Every object in the flat seemed laden with awful memory.

“You threw out all the fingers, I suppose?”

John startled, and swiveled up to Sherlock. “What?”

“The fingers,” said Sherlock again. “The ones from Molly?” He was staring at the table, at the spot where his experiments had been set up the last night he was in Baker Street. “You’ve thrown them out." He sighed, audibly irritated. "Honestly, John. I was only gone a few days."

John opened his mouth, closed it, shook his head in disbelief. _"What?!"_

"I really can’t have you getting rid of all my things the moment I’m not around to stop you," answered Sherlock, whirling to face him. "It’s horribly disrespectful, and not at all advantageous for the Work.” He drew himself up to full height, forcing John to arch his neck to meet his eyes. “I think you owe me an apology."

"I…you…you must be joking,” John breathed, aghast. But even as he spoke he felt the upshift in his body's physiology—adrenaline ratcheting up his heart rate, the muscles tightening along the span of his back, his mouth contorting into a snarl. At his side, his palm coiled into a fist. “Tell me you’re joking!” he demanded.

“Something succinct would be preferable, if you can manage it,” Sherlock drawled in response, his tone cold and full of condescending steel, and oh, that was it, John really was going to punch him now; growling, he widened his stance, rolled his shoulder and made to pull his arm back…

…And stopped. Sherlock was _smiling_ at him. Well no, not really, in truth he still appeared agitated, even mad, but suddenly John could see very clearly the coy spark tucked behind the anger in his eyes, and the way his lips were pressed tightly together the way they usually went when he wanted very much to grin but was trying hard to keep a straight face.

John slumped in place. “Oh my god,” he whispered, thunderstruck. “You _are._ You _are_ joking. You're, you're not—oh, fucking hell, Sherlock. _Fucking hell…”_ The left side of Sherlock's mouth twisted up into a very tiny smirk.

John never figured out which of them started laughing first. He would revisit that moment in particular often in later years, that splendid, golden instant when, for a short time at least, all the that had been building between them for so long seemed to break open and fly away, but no matter how carefully he reconstructed the series of events, John was never, ever able to determine if it was he who laughed first, or Sherlock, or both of them at the same time. All John would ever recall was that for that one sliver of time, everything—absolutely  _everything—_ became ridiculously, uncontrollably _funny,_ and that they laughed and laughed and laughed, until they couldn't laugh anymore, until they had tears in their eyes, and until John was doubled over, clutching at stitches in his side.

“You know what the best part is?” he wheezed up at Sherlock when he finally regained his voice. “Hmm? I didn’t throw those bloody fingers away. God knows why, but I didn’t.”

Sherlock, still consumed with giggles, quirked a brow. “Boxed them up and put them in the fridge, did you?”

“Actually, yes.”

“Good man,” said Sherlock with a sharp nod, and that set John off again, and then Sherlock, until they were both gasping for breath and leaning lightheaded against the wall. John was the first to recover.

“Jesus, I almost hit you,” he puffed.

Sherlock shrugged. “Not undeservedly, I suppose,” he said, and suddenly the awkward reality of their situation came crashing down around them once more. John cleared his throat as the punch-drunk atmosphere between them quickly chilled, scratching at the back of his neck. Sherlock was staring at him, he realized, looking a little uneasy for the first time John had seen that night, and once more he found himself acutely aware of how gaunt the man had become in such a short time, how incredibly spare. Now that their levity had run its course, he seemed to be waiting for John to take the initiative, for the other shoe to drop—for John to remember he was angry, heartbroken, bitter—but the truth was that all John felt was distinctly overwhelmed.

“Sherlock—” he began.

“John, I—” said Sherlock at the same time, and both men snapped their mouths shut, and turned away with frustrated frowns.

“I need a bath,” Sherlock mumbled to the floor, after a beat.

John nodded, staring in the opposite direction at the tattered edge of the grease-stained rag hanging from the oven. “Yeah, all right,” he said. But Sherlock didn’t move away, and after a moment John could feel his eyes on him again.

“I think I can find my way from here, John,” he said eventually, shaking his arm a bit, and only then did John realize they were still— _still!—_ holding hands. Dismayed, he pulled his fingers out from between Sherlock’s and moved out of the detective’s space.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, backing away towards the worktop. “I’ll just…er…” He cast his eyes about the kitchen, searching for a point of focus. “Yes. You go wash up and I’ll make coffee or tea or, or _something…”_ He glanced anxiously to his watch, then back to Sherlock. “Are you hungry? Do you want anything?” _  
_

Sherlock’s only answer was a long, cryptic stare. “Whatever you like, John,” he said eventually, peeling his attention from the doctor and turning down the hall. “I’ll be out in a while.”

“Right,” answered John weakly, watching him go.

The bathroom door sounded very loud as it clicked shut. Seconds later, the taps opened up, and the pipes in the walls creaked and groaned and shuddered to life. John turned and put the kettle on.

 

∞

 

Sherlock emerged from the bath twenty minutes later in a cloud of mist, pink-skinned and damp. His hair had been parted at the side and combed away from his face, still wet enough to discourage the worst of his curls and to appear almost black, and he’d put on slippers and also his heaviest robe over his pajamas, all of which John noticed from his spot on the couch when the detective strode into the front room with a mug of tea in one hand and the other stuffed in a pocket, and said, very determinately: “You threw away all the painkillers in the medicine cabinet.”

John frowned, bit down on the inside of his cheek, then muted the television and exhaled a long, slow breath. “Mycroft forwarded me a copy of your lab results,” he said at last, staring unseeingly at a spot on the floor near Sherlock’s feet. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, John,” Sherlock answered. “I'm not laying blame. We both know it was the right thing to do.”

John glanced up. Sherlock was looking at him from across the room, determined despite the fair amount of color in his cheeks. John’s scrutiny seemed too much for him to bear, however, because the moment John’s eyes met his own he shuffled his feet and rearranged his arms, then took a sip of tea and remained looking at his cup. “I suppose you want to talk about it, then,” he said.

John scrubbed a hand across his mouth, setting his gaze to the windows as he allowed the gravity of the situation to slowly sink in. Because it was true—John _did_ want to talk about it, and desperately, so desperately that he had thought of little else for the better part of three weeks, ever since Sherlock’s relapse. The detective had upset so much with that, thought John, and John had been so _angry_ , really he had, mostly because he wasn’t any good at dealing with guilt and shock and failure, but also because John hated Sherlock for making him deal with those things, and, more importantly, because he hated himself for hating Sherlock.

But now, thought John, things could begin to be different. Now, he could have answers. Now, Sherlock was giving John the power to make him reveal everything, and this time, John knew, it wouldn’t explode into a Mycroftian melodrama, the way it had the morning after Mrs. Hudson found him, or a knock-down, drag-out fight, the way it had after the Camberwell case. Now it would just be Sherlock, sitting in his leather chair and picking morosely at the lip of his mug and telling John _everything._ Where he’d gone. What he’d done. Why he’d done it. Every detail. John could finally _know._

John had wanted that, once. Now though, with the opportunity laid bare before him, it didn’t feel nearly as vindicating or satisfying as John had imagined it would, just hollow, and a little spiteful. After all, John didn’t want to see Sherlock browbeaten and defeated, shackled by a debt he couldn’t ever truly repay. He didn’t want Sherlock owing him for the rest of his life.

John just wanted…well...

John shifted his attention back to Sherlock. “If you really want to tell me about it, I'll be happy to listen,” he said. “Honestly though, I’d much prefer to see you come over here help me eat all this food Mrs. Hudson brought up.” He held up a plate laden with a partly consumed section of the mincemeat pie the landlady had delivered while Sherlock had been showering, and scooped another bite into his mouth. “It’s really good.”

Sherlock’s mouth fell open just a bit. “Are you being serious?” he asked finally, looking ever so slightly horrified. “Is this...Is this because of what I said about the fingers? Because, I—John, if it is...I'm not always good with jokes, John, and you need to tell me—”

“Sherlock,” John interrupted, waving his fork a bit to silence him. “I promise, it’s all perfectly fine. Really. So go on, get a piece of lemon tart and come sit down." He waggled his eyebrows in a way he hoped looked enticing. "I know you want to...”

Sherlock hesitated a moment more. At last he bit his lip, eyes darting from John to the kitchen and back again. “Did Mrs. Hudson put raspberries on top?” he asked, completely seriously.

“You know she did,” John said, moving hastily to stuff another forkful of food into his face to keep from snorting into the flatware, and Sherlock nodded sagely and drifted into the kitchen, appeased.

He returned with a slice of dessert nearly size of his plate—though, John thought, the way he was Sherlock could do with a few generous helpings of sugar and fat—and sat down on the couch within arm's reach of John. It wasn’t awful. In fact, thought John, relaxing back into the cushions after a few minutes and just that much closer to Sherlock, stealing covert glances at him every so often, it was quite a lot good, better than it had been in weeks. He couldn’t remember the last time they had actually managed to _enjoy_ each other's company, but now, miraculously, it seemed they were, and in no time it all it felt at least like a semblance of the old camaraderie they used to so effortlessly share—Sherlock and John, together again.

They’d made it through nearly an entire rerun of  _QI_ before John crossed his legs, nudged Sherlock in the side and said to him, “I got you a Christmas present, you know.”

“You did not,” Sherlock answered, forming the words around his last mouthful of lemon custard, not even bothering to pry his eyes from the television. John grinned.

“I did.”

Sherlock set his plate down sharply and turned to John. “No, you didn't. I would have noticed.”

“I had Mrs. Hudson do the ordering,” John explained. “It’s been hidden in her broom cupboard for over a month. I forgot about it, to be honest, but tonight she brought it up along with all the cooking. Care to see what it is?”

Sherlock set his jaw, as if he couldn't decide if it was better to preserve his dignity or indulge his curiosity. “I’ll go get it,” John told him to save him the trouble, and made a quick trip to the kitchen, returning with a small, rectangular object wrapped in nondescript brown packing paper.

“It’s not much,” he said as he brought it back to the couch, turning it over in his hands. “I just—well, you’ll see.” He handed it to Sherlock. “Open it.”

In all the time John had known him, Sherlock had always made a very big show of guessing the contents of presents before he opened them—often, even, when the presents were intended for other people, like John. It was a habit which was, to quote the doctor himself on more than one occasion, _fucking_ _annoying, Sherlock, and don't you dare do it again_ , and in the beginning of their acquaintanceship John had supposed Sherlock did it simply to show off his talents of observation. In time, though, while John had learned that this initial suspicion was not entirely unfounded, he also came to recognize that the slightly _truer_ reason behind it all was the simple fact that Sherlock was _impatient—_ usually, he could deduce what the gift was quicker than he could open it.

This time, though, Sherlock didn’t make any guesses. He didn’t even shake the box, or inspect it closely, just carefully set it in his lap and picked apart the wrapping until it fell away and its contents were revealed.

“Rosin,” he stated flatly, staring for moment at the little brick and then turning up to John. “You got me violin rosin.”

“I know you’re running low,” John told him. “I had a peek in your case a little while ago.”

"Yes, I remember," said Sherlock, sounding oddly gruff and out of sorts. "November seventeenth. Afternoon, between two and six pm. You left your fingerprints all over the latches."

John couldn't keep the smile off his face. "Sharp as ever, you."

"Obvious," mumbled Sherlock, but seemed to be only half listening; he'd returned to staring at the rosin brick, worrying an edge of the packing paper between his fingers. His eyes were downcast. “I honestly don’t know what to say, John," he said at last. "I didn’t get you anything.” John sighed, then sat down and gently nudged the brick into Sherlock’s palm. “Play me something?"

Sherlock was startled. “You  _want_ to hear me play?”

“If you’re up for it," said John. "As long as you promise to not to try and murder me with your violin this time." His lips curled into a smirk, but when Sherlock’s owlish stare remained deathly serious, John's expression sobered, too. He cleared his throat. “You really do play beautifully, Sherlock,” he muttered, looking away.

Sherlock considered this a moment, then without another further ado stood up, crossed the room, and snapped open his instrument case. He spent quite a bit of time at the pegs, face set in concentration as he expertly coaxed the violin back into tune, before turning back to face John with the neck in one hand and the bow in the other.

“What do you want to hear?” he asked.

“I suppose I should ask for _Auld Lang Syne_ ,” said John, “considering you missed New Year’s.”

Sherlock frowned, unamused. “Pedestrian.”

“Which is why I should make you play it anyway, as punishment,” teased John, then shrugged, stretching out on the couch with a lazy smile. “Hell, what do I know. Play whatever you like. Artist’s discretion.”

“Really,” muttered Sherlock, wrinkling his nose but quite unable to keep a faint smug glow out of the turn of his lips or the point of his chin. _“Artist._ Like I’m bowing for pennies in the street.”

“Right, what was I thinking,” said John, really grinning now, laughter building in his chest despite himself. “Consulting detective’s discretion, then. Mad scientist’s discretion. Total complete wanker’s discretion. How’s that?”

“Better,” murmured Sherlock, still looking annoyed but now also undeniably pleased. With a flourish he turned and swept his violin to his chin, focusing his gaze out the window.

He didn’t, however, play. John watched him make several attempts, but each time he stopped short before his bow touched the strings, apparently unsatisfied with whatever he’d been about to begin. At last he broke his playing stance, dropping both bow and violin to his sides with a long sign. When he turned to face John his brow was creased in annoyance, as though he’d come to a decision but wasn’t happy about it. “I’m going to need an _accompaniment,”_ he huffed.

“Well, I can’t much help you there, mate,” John said. “I never could carry a tune.”

“Not from _you,”_ said Sherlock archly, setting his instrument on the table before stalking into the kitchen and then to the back of the flat. “Just wait there a moment,” he called out, and John could hear him rummaging about his room. When he returned, it was with a set of small, portable speakers.

“I’ve never heard you play with music before,” said John, leaning forward with newfound curiosity as Sherlock arranged the equipment on the table and plugged the audio jack into his laptop.

Sherlock sighed, keeping his eyes glued to his computer screen as he scrolled through his music library for the track in question. “I don’t normally like to,” he explained. “Not very good for thinking, other people’s thoughts, and I prefer keeping my own time. Still—” and here he stood up, having apparently found what he was looking for, and tucked his violin back beneath his chin, “—it can, every now and again, have its advantages." He breathed deep, and pointed the bow in the doctor’s direction. “For you then, John,” he said, and from the speakers the first few notes of a piano began to play, and Sherlock set his bow against the strings.

The song began quietly, low and dark, filling the room with tender, ghostly noise. John sat rapt from the first bars on, captivated entirely, watching Sherlock’s body sway like willow as he played, his talented fingers flying upon the fingerboard—he held his violin as one would hold a lover, John realized, and found that he was blushing, and that he couldn’t, didn’t want to, look away. The piano spoke, Sherlock’s violin answered, and then the melody swelled and burst open into a bright symphonic flurry, cheerful and somber in turns, metered and arrhythmic, like a pair of complementary voices engaged in a great dance of echoes, holding each other afloat in a space made for them alone.

At last the song drew to a close, ebbing into a last handful of mournful trills and then finally to silence. When the final note was done, Sherlock sighed and lowered his arms. “Well,” he said, inclining his head slightly towards the doctor but still looking out the window. “Merry Christmas, John.”

John’s chest felt too tight to speak. Finally, head still awash with unutterable emotion, he managed to say, “That was unbelievable. What was it?”

 _"The Lark Ascending_ ," answered Sherlock, switching off the speakers before the next song could begin and laying his violin away. “By Ralph Vaughan Williams.”

“I’ve heard it before,” murmured John. “At least I think I have. I can’t place where or when, but it sounded familiar.”

“I should hope so,” said Sherlock. “It’s one of the most famous classical pieces to come out of England in a century.”

John smiled. “Well, in any case, it was lovely. Remarkable, really. Thank you.”

Sherlock didn't answer. At first John thought he was simply being modest, was perhaps even a bit embarrassed by the praise, but then he noticed the whiteness of Sherlock's cheeks, and the forced set of his jaw, and that Sherlock was, despite a very valiant effort to hide it, very nearly panting. John hurried to his feet. “I’m fine, John,” Sherlock rasped, cringing at the attention and trying to wave him off. But as John drew near him he could see it was a lie: Sherlock’s chest was heaving now, and he was leaning heavily against the edge of the table, gripping it for support.

“You’re exhausted,” John murmured. Somehow, Sherlock managed a scoff.

“I did just play you a fourteen-minute piece,” he said. “From memory, and with no proper warm-up.”

“And you’re still convalescing,” John reminded him.

Sherlock frowned, looking ever so slightly troubled. “Well, yes,” he said. “There’s also that. But there's really no need to worry, John; I’m back home now and you're here to take care of me, so—” His mouth snapped shut as soon as his brain caught up with his words. Suddenly shy, he turned around, busying himself the details of his violin case. “Not that I’d expect you to,” he amended quickly, firmly ignoring John standing behind him. “I can manage on my own, of course; I’ve recovered from much worse, and I…I…” His voice trailed away as two strong arms encircled him from behind.

“John. What in the world are you doing?”

A huff of giddy laughter escaped John as he tightened his arms around Sherlock’s waist, pressing his face between the detective’s shoulder blades. “I’m hugging you, you mad bastard,” he said, positioning his smiling cheek sideways against cotton and vertebrae. “What do you think?”

Sherlock sounded utterly baffled. “Why?”

“Why?!” barked John. _Because I’m happy you’re home! Because I’m happy you’re safe!_ his brain supplied instantly. “Because I missed you,” he said instead, and perhaps, when all was over and done, that was the better, truer thing. It seemed to resonate with Sherlock, in any case, for he stilled at John’s words, then slowly turned about, rotating in the doctor’s arms until they were facing one another.

“And that’s what people do, then,” he asked carefully, staring intently down John, “when they’ve missed each other? They…hug?”

John shrugged. “Well, yeah, when they care about each other. Yeah, Sherlock. They do.”

Sherlock pressed his lips together. His expression was potently intense, but familiar, the one John knew was reserved solely for puzzles and crimes and criminals—the one he wore when he had to quickly suss out truth from a web of complicated data. It lasted just a moment, and then, in a rush, Sherlock swooped forward, trapping John in a strong-armed embrace that had his body pressed fully against John’s and his head burrowed deep in the crook of John’s shoulder, tickling John's nose with several sudden handfuls of damp, dark curls. It was so sudden, so unexpected, that John actually laughed, and brought a hand up to ruffle playfully through the locks and the familiar scents of the detective’s shampoo—eucalyptus oil, tea tree, mint.

But then Sherlock’s body gave a little heave against John's, and the grin dropped from John’s face.

“Sherlock…?”

Sherlock’s only answer was another was another tiny heave of his shoulders against John's chest, followed by another, and another. “Oh, Sherlock,” John sighed, “it’s all right. It’s okay.” Sherlock quavered, then began to cry openly.

“I-I’m sorry,” he stuttered between loud, broken sobs.

“No, Sherlock,” John murmured, gently petting the detective’s hair away from his face with one hand, holding him at the waist with the other. “No, no, no. It’s fine. It’s all fine.”

“It’s _disgusting,”_ Sherlock corrected, blinking rapidly and looking furious with himself as he reigned in his sobs and pushed himself away from John, using the back of his sleeve to sop up the sniffle from his nose and then the heels of his hands to catch whatever more was threatening to fall from his eyes. “It’s the transport, John, it’s—it’s defective; it’s not supposed to…" He whined, clutching fistfuls of his hair. "My god, how can anyone bear this—I hate it, John, I hate it, I hate it, _I_ _hate it!”_

John reached up, catching the detective’s tear-stained face in his hands. “Sherlock!” he ordered. “Calm down. Look at me.”

“My mind is in _ruins,_ John!” Sherlock wailed back at him, twisting out of John’s grip. “Nothing’s in the right place anymore, nothing’s working the way it should!”

“Sherlock—”

 _“I can’t keep doing this, John!”_ Sherlock shouted, roughly bucking off the hand John had tried to lay upon his shoulder. _“Don't you understand!? I can’t! I’ve tried and tried but I just CAN’T!”_

The pain in his voice was shocking, but John had very little time to react; no sooner were the words out of Sherlock’s mouth than like a popped balloon all the fight went out of him in a rush, and he slumped forward, limp. John caught him, pulling their bodies together again and cradling Sherlock’s face against his neck. “It’s all right,” he murmured. “Come on now, it’s okay. I’ve got you.” When he had calmed a bit, John brushed his fingers through the curls at Sherlock's nape and said to him, very softly, “You know, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, Sherlock.”

“But I _do_ want to, John,” Sherlock whispered back, and then, right at the place where his neck stretched into shoulder, John felt a sudden hot tongue peek out and very quickly lick a tiny, wet stripe along his skin.

The world tilted just a bit off its axis. John gasped.

In a flash the tongue was gone, and Sherlock pulled away. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled hastily, instantly flushed from his hairline to his collarbone. He looked shocked by his behavior, and more than a bit appalled, but stayed rooted where he stood, apparently too mortified to move. “I apologize, John, I-I shouldn’t have, it wasn’t, I, I just didn't think, and I-I-I—”

_“Wait.”_

Sherlock’s mouth snapped shut. John swallowed around the lump in his throat, tried and failed to look him in the eye, and wound up staring at his neck instead, where a tiny mole anchored his nervous energy in place. “If I told you I wanted you to,” he whispered carefully, as if each word held a great, untested power, “would you want to, Sherlock?”

“You’re not gay,” Sherlock blurted, sounding terrified.

“But would you want to?” John asked again. He was still staring at Sherlock’s mole.

The detective squirmed, biting his lip. “But, I thought…I thought Mary—”

 _“Sherlock,”_ John said, and even though he didn’t mean to use his captain’s voice then he did, and Sherlock froze and John looked him in the face, and _Jesus fucking hell_ , they were so _close._ “Listen to me, Sherlock. _If I told you I wanted you to_. If I told you it’s what I wanted. Then. Would—you—want—to?”

Sherlock closed his eyes, opened them again. His lips parted; through them John could see his tongue, his teeth; he could see the pores on his nose, the tiny scar on his jaw the detective had once proudly informed John was the place he’d been cut in his first street fight. John leant in, ghosted his mouth across the smooth dent of it. “Would you, Sherlock?” he whispered.

John could feel the rapid pulse of Sherlock’s heart in his lips. And then at last came his answer, a rumbling vibration of voice: _“Yes_ _.”_

“Okay then,” breathed John, and without another word or thought he angled his lips upward and pressed them against Sherlock’s partly open mouth.

For a long while they stood just like that, eyes open and staring at one another through the haze of double vision as John’s lips sat lightly against Sherlock’s front teeth. Hardly textbook romance, John would think later—Sherlock’s eyes were red from crying and John likely still had all kinds of odd food smells on his breath—but even so Sherlock didn’t flinch or pull away, and the longer the two stayed touching the more John felt something oddly transfixing in the point of contact, something that made him ravenous for more. He pursed his lips and pressed against Sherlock harder, just enough to cause the detective’s shallow breathing to hitch, then pulled away.

“Sherlock Holmes,” he whispered, threading one hand up through the man's black curls to keep him in place, “I do believe you are the single most maddening man on the face of the earth.” He let his free hand drop to Sherlock’s hip, dragging his teeth along the rim of the detective’s lower lip. “And I am going to kiss you now. Okay?”

“We…you’ve already kissed me,” Sherlock mumbled back, looking and sounding thoroughly dazed, and also like he couldn’t quite believe what he was saying.

“I mean I am _really_ going to kiss you,” said John, tightening his grip on Sherlock’s hip and pulling their bodies sharply into contact, and Sherlock gasped and his eyes went wide and he said, _“Oh.”_

They came together in an open clash of teeth and tongues—awkward, unpracticed, and perfect. Sherlock, John would remember forever after, tasted in that kiss like lemon.

They kissed, and kissed, and kissed, until they physically couldn't any longer. When at last they broke apart for air, John used his grip in Sherlock's hair to tip his head back, exposing the sinewy column of his neck to mouth his way along his jaw. Sherlock whimpered, clutching fistfuls of John’s shirt in response, and when John reached the soft, sensitive spot right beneath Sherlock’s ear he opened his lips wider and then closed them in a loving bite, rolling a bit of the skin there between his teeth. Sherlock’s next exhale was a broken shout; he faltered, and the backs of his thighs landed against the table’s edge. John seized the opportunity to press harder against him, still working Sherlock’s neck and for the first time feeling very distinctly the beginnings of a bulge in the detective’s trousers.

For a wild, wicked moment John had half a mind to take him in hand right then and there, but instead slowed his movements, trailing his hand across Sherlock’s chest to locate a nipple and rub his thumb across the bud until it stood pertly through the shirt fabric. Sherlock whined and arched in John’s arms, scrabbling for the curves of his rear to pull John straight into the vee of his spread legs. The table groaned under the weight of their efforts.

“You’re so sensitive,” John whispered, awestruck.

“S-sorry.”

“No, no,” John assured him, unable to keep from smiling as he began kissing trails along Sherlock's neck again, working up this time, taking care to put his lips on each and every mole. "It’s good. It’s sexy.”

“Really?”

“Bloody hell, Sherlock,” John breathed, hastily smashing their mouths together again before grinding his half-hard erection into the detective’s leg. “Does it feel like I’m lying to you?” And then, simply because he couldn’t restrain himself any longer, he reached between their bodies and cupped Sherlock’s cock in his palm.

Sherlock’s eyes rolled back in his head, and oh, thought John, that was a sight to savor, except that at the same time Sherlock’s knees went slightly weak and his hands flew out to steady himself against the edge of the table, upsetting a stack of books and then the lamp in quick succession and sending the whole lot tumbling to the ground with a crash.

The noise startled both men back to their senses. Breathing heavily, they whipped about to stare at the fallen items, and then, excruciatingly slowly, turned back to one another. Sherlock’s fingers were still dug firmly into John’s arse; John’s hand was still pressed lewdly against the detective’s crotch.

“I don’t want to stop, John,” Sherlock whispered.

It took the doctor a few tries to find his voice. “…B…Bedroom, then?” he asked. Sherlock nodded.

John swallowed, then dutifully backed away. Awkwardly sidestepping around Sherlock, he fumbled through what remained upon the messy table for his wallet and with shaking hands extracted the two condoms that had been there now for weeks. For a moment he stared at them in his hand, then glanced down, saw the hard line of himself down the leg of his pants— _Jesus—_ and shook his head to clear it. It felt like his brain was hovering somewhere around fifty percent operating capacity.

“Okay?” he asked, looking back at Sherlock.

Sherlock’s eyes flicked to the foils, then back to John. He looked positively petrified. “Okay,” he said.

John nodded. “Okay.” And he took Sherlock by the hand and led him to the back of the flat.

Sherlock's bedroom was quiet and still when they entered. At the threshold John uncoupled their hands, then tossed the condoms to the nightstand and turned on the lamp, illuminating the bed. He stared a moment at its neatly folded corners, taking in its obvious expanse. He didn't think he'd ever known an inanimate object to feel so decidedly unhelpful. The very thought of what they were doing was making him jittery and profoundly anxious; he found didn't quite know how to hold himself, or what to do with his hands. Despite having gone his entire life considering sex a fun, recreational activity, John now felt burdened by a sense of strange obligation—here, finally, the thing that everyone had always assumed was going on from the start was actually going to happen. The pressure to live up to the world's imagination was incredible.

When John chanced a glance back at Sherlock, however, he forgot all his nervousness for heartache.

Sherlock was still standing at the door where John had left him, awash now in the warm yellow light of the lamp. But it did little to soften the clench of his jaw, or hide the terror in his eyes. He seemed like he was trying to make himself scarce, standing limb-locked and trembling like a stranger in his own room, and suddenly John felt ashamed for thinking he was the one most affected by what they were doing.

“Come here,” he murmured, taking Sherlock's hands in his and pulling him a few steps forward. They stopped just beside the bed, and John saw Sherlock's Adam's apple bobble as he slipped his fingers gently under the lapels of Sherlock's robe and lifted it up over his shoulders. It fell to the floor in a heap of satin, and John pressed a reassuring kiss to the corner of Sherlock’s jaw. “Now help me with this,” he whispered, taking Sherlock’s hands and leading them to the hem of his shirt, and allowed Sherlock to tug it over his shoulders and discard it alongside the robe. A little bit of Sherlock's reticence seemed to boil away as it dropped to the ground, and John let him indulge his curiosity, relaxing into the points of Sherlock's fingers as they dipped into the revealed spaces formed by his abs, his neck, the ridges of his collarbone. He seemed fascinated by John’s body. When his fingers came in contact with the raised skin of John’s war scar, however, they froze.

John sighed. He didn't usually like his girlfriends gawking at the wound; even if they were kind, they invariably acted differently towards him after seeing it, gentler somehow, more motherly, and John didn't like being treated like he was damaged. The idea of _Sherlock_ seeing the scar, though, _observing_ _it,_ felt entirely different—safe, even exciting. John tipped his head away to give Sherlock a better view. “You can,” he said, reaching up to give Sherlock’s upper arm an encouraging squeeze. "I don't mind."

Sherlock’s eyes flicked up to John’s, once, before his fingers resumed their exploration. “Does it hurt?” he asked, touching experimental circles against the knot of the entry wound, then out along the radiating furrows, where the infection had taken hold left the skin mottled and warped.

“Not anymore,” John answered, sighing gently as Sherlock kneaded the flesh, then swept his hand around to John’s back to feel for the exit wound's gnarled array. “It did, though. For a long time.”

Sherlock bent low, pressing his open mouth against the scar. “Is it numb?” he whispered.

John bit his lip. “In some places."

“Here?” Sherlock asked, and laved his tongue across the puckered flesh.

The touch went straight to John’s cock. _“Christ, Sherlock,”_ he swore, fighting hard the sudden impulse to grind hard against him. 

Sherlock paused, looking shocked he could with such small effort elicit so powerful a physical response from another person. “It’s all very odd, John," he said. "I’ve seen you undressed many times before; I’ve seen your scar. But I’ve never felt _affected_ by it quite this way. I don’t understand why…it doesn’t make sense…” Sherlock shook his head, then licked his lips as his attention rose slowly to John’s mouth, as if drawn there by some inexplicable gravity. “You make me want to do things,” he murmured, trance-like. “…Certain things…”

“Certain things?” echoed John, nearly breathless. “Like what?” Slowly, Sherlock stalked forward, backing them up until John found himself bracketed between the bedroom wall and the unmistakable prod of the long, hard length of Sherlock pressing into his hip.

Sherlock groaned, tucking his head against John’s neck, clutching him nearly hard enough to bruise. _"John,"_ he gasped. "John, please, may I…?”

John swallowed, tipping his head back against the wall and swallowing down what he was knew would have been an absolutely indecorous groan. Sherlock’s body was taut as wire. And he was already moving subconsciously, making little abortive jerks against John’s waist that were slowly but steadily escalating into a rhythm. John closed his eyes, letting him move. He seemed in the moment to need something specific from the contact, from John’s body against his, and whatever it was John was all too happy to oblige: a slow, powerful desire was blooming deep his belly the longer Sherlock kept at it, bright as flint glass, hot as kiln fire, that made John wavery and wild in a way he hadn’t felt since adolescence. It was the feeling of the edges of himself being burned away in a crucible of desire, the feeling of being consumed by _force._ Sherlock smelled like musk and soap; his touches were clumsy and heavy and hot. With every thrust he knocked John up against the wall.

John had never been on the receiving end of passion like this before. Contrary to much of London’s tabloid chatter, he had never been intimate with another man. He knew the _mechanics_ of it, of course—he had a cock of his own, after all, not to mention a medical degree, and he’d even been in the _army_ , where such things did sometimes happen and were generally considered part and parcel of the service, even if they did happen in relative secrecy and were almost never talked about later. But such things had never happened for John. For John, personally, having sex had always meant having sex with women—full stop, end of story.

But then he'd been shot, and Sherlock Holmes had come swanning into his life. And now, there was this. And, well.

Not quite the end, apparently.

And it would have taken Sherlock bloody Holmes to do it, thought John. No other man, he was sure, would have ever managed to get him pinned up against a bedroom wall like this, mad with want and rock hard in his pants. But, as always, Sherlock was different. Sherlock was…he was…

Oh _Jesus,_ he was—

John’s eyes snapped open in surprise as Sherlock, with no warning whatsoever, reached around to the back of John's thigh and hoisted his leg off the floor. It changed the angle of their contact, made John just a little more perpendicular against him, and suddenly their groins slid together for the first time. Sherlock cried out, tensed, rammed John harder against the wall...and  _froze._  
  
"Sher..." John's voice was little more than a rasp of air. He could feel the tension along the length of Sherlock's body, the weight the detective was using to keep him pinned in place. He was nearly vibrating with the effort of keeping still. "Sherlock?" John asked, gripping his shoulder to get his attention. "Is this not... Do you want to stop?"

Sherlock shook his head frantically, burrowing harder against the curve of John's neck. "It's just so much," he whispered into the skin there, his words barely audible through the volume of his harsh breathing. "It's so much, it's so much..." He sounded overcome. John patted him softly, and moved to disengage his leg from Sherlock's grip.

 _"No!"_ Sherlock gasped, and quickly pressed into John with renewed force, shifting them again so he was supporting even more of the doctor's weight. "No, John, please. Just let me... I need to do it like this, please. For a moment. Just for a moment."

John nodded, lightheaded, and squeezed his eyes shut as Sherlock rolled his hips again. "I can _feel_ you, John," he murmured. "I can feel the way your body is responding to me. Every touch, it changes, and my body changes too..." John felt the tremors in Sherlock's arms, in his legs. "It's so _much,_ John," he said again.

"I know, Sherlock."

"And I want it all," Sherlock said suddenly, lifting his face to John's. "I want it so much. I want to know every part of you, taste all of you. Do you think I could? I don't know if it's humanly possible. But still, I want it. I want to learn you completely. I need all of you there is.”

John stared at him. Sherlock's breaths were becoming wetter and more ragged, something close to sobs. Several of his curls had sprung away from where he'd combed them back. When John reached up and brushed them away, Sherlock pressed earnestly into his touch.  

John was beyond words. Carefully, he pushed forward with his hips, into Sherlock, who whimpered and ground back into John. They began a jolting rhythm against one another, rubbing mindlessly, breathing in each others' air. It was enough to make a man come, thought John, and for a moment he actually entertained the idea of climaxing in his pants, right there, fully-clothed, like a spotty teenager. But Sherlock was shaking badly now, gasping like he was close to fainting, and John remembered the way he'd looked in the sitting room, clutching his violin and trembling from sheer exhaustion, and thought better of it. He tilted his lips towards Sherlock's ear. "Bed," he whispered. "Let me take you to bed, Sherlock..."

The words did the trick; Sherlock's hips stuttered to a halt. John took the opportunity to plant both his feet back on the floor, and reconfigured his grip on Sherlock’s arms to wheel him around and march him wordlessly to the bed, forcing him down by the shoulders until he was sitting sprawled on the soft expanse of the quilt, legs open and panting.

“Take your clothes off,” John ordered, standing over him, his hands flying frantically to work his belt buckle open. “Now, Sherlock, please.”

Sherlock grunted, tugging his t-shirt over his head and throwing it aimlessly across the room. His chest was much smoother than John's own, dusted with freckles and just the lightest smattering of dark, curly hairs, excepting of course the denser trail of fur running from his bellybutton to below the waistband of his cotton pajamas. John ran his eye along it, then knelt down in the space between Sherlock’s knees and pressed his lips to it; Sherlock made a soft, surprised noise John could only categorize as a squeak. Awkwardly negotiating his own now throbbing erection, John drew back to grab a condom from the nightstand, and shuffled forward as much as he could to gather Sherlock’s face in his hands.

“All right?” he asked, ducking to find the detective’s hooded eyes from beneath his long, dark lashes. Sherlock nodded.

“Yes.”

“You’re sure?”

Sherlock angled his head, dragging his lips along the ridge of John’s thumb before taking the tip of it into his mouth to suck around the nail. _“Yes,”_ he said again, his voice dropping into an octave so low it was nearly a whisper. John’s cock jerked against his leg.

Slowly, John pulled his thumb from Sherlock's mouth and slid his hands down the detective’s body. He felt ravenous; everything in him was aching to move quickly, but still he took his time, leaning forward to follow his trailing fingers with gentle kisses, tasting the thin veneer of Sherlock's sweat at a multitude of points—clavicle, nipple, intercostal muscles, belly. Finally he came to rest at the divots just above Sherlock's hips, where he hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his trousers, and stopped to look up. Sherlock had fallen back on the heels of his hands, watching John's advance with a slightly parted mouth and his head lolling against the swell of his shoulder, but at John's glance he blinked himself back to awareness and pushed himself up enough to allow the clothing to be pulled down and away.

John had seen Sherlock naked before, but never aroused. Erect, the detective’s penis was built much as he was, long and lean, colored dusky red at the tip but paler at the root, where the trail of wiry curls that started at his stomach forested into a dense nest that closed neatly around it and then down further, around his sac and into the cleft of his buttocks.

“You’re beautiful, you know,” John told him, almost on impulse. Sherlock looked staggered, then flushed and looked away. John dropped a hand to his thigh, setting his cheek against the soft stretch of his inner knee. “Has anyone ever told you that before?” he asked. Sherlock, still looking to the side, shook his head. “That’s a pity,” John murmured, turning a bit to kiss Sherlock’s knee, and then again, a little higher, and then once more, a little higher than that. "Because you really, _really_ are.”

Sherlock whimpered, tensing at John's incrementally close touches. “Jaaawn,” he whined, drawing out the name, jaw falling slack at the way the doctor’s breaths were blowing just so against his perfectly rigid cock. “John, I-I can’t… John, please…”

John hushed him, soothingly caressing Sherlock's hipbone as he shifted slightly and tore open the condom foil with his teeth. “Ssh, now," he murmured, "it’s all right. I’ve got you.” Gently, with almost excessive care, he positioned the rubber at the tip of Sherlock's cock and then rolled it down the whole of his length, pausing to give Sherlock a moment to adjust to the feel. With much less decorum, he grabbed the remaining condom and tugged it on himself. “Okay?” he asked when he was done, and Sherlock’s breathing had begun to even out.

Sherlock’s response was to fall backward against the duvet in a groaning rush, landing with his fists clenched and one arm thrown across his red, gasping face. John laughed aloud and followed him back, climbing knees and hands onto the bed to position his body over Sherlock’s, caging his head with his arms. Nudging Sherlock’s elbow aside, he leant in to kiss him once, twice, three times, relishing the way Sherlock's lips opened gently for him now, at the sweet noises he made as John slipped his tongue past Sherlock's own to reach into the deep corners of his mouth. In the back of his mind John was dimly aware of long arms twining themselves across his back in return, of a leg twisting around his waist, and at those tender touches something warm and dear and too-long dormant began unfurling in the confines of his chest, something indefinable and powerful and raw. He broke the kiss and pulled away, just enough to look at Sherlock and smile at him, wanting to share it. Instead, his attention was caught by a slight twist of Sherlock’s arm, which threw a few rays of lamplight on something John had not noticed before, and hitherto not thought to look for in his lust-addled haze. He froze, chilled to the bone.

Sherlock followed the direction of his eyes, then grunted, making a quick move to pull away. “Don’t,” John said, catching a hold of his wrist before he could. “Let me see. I showed you mine.”

“They’re not the same,” Sherlock answered bitterly, all but spitting the words into the crook of the arm caught in the air between them, now the object of John’s grave attention. “At least you can be _proud_ of yours.” He sounded wretched, but he didn’t resist, and seconds later allowed John to unfold and rotate his arm towards the light, illuminating the hollow of his inner elbow. Dotting the skin there were a series of angry-looking scabs, ringed with red and raised slightly against Sherlock's otherwise alabaster skin. They followed the paths of several prominent veins, which had darkened slightly with abuse—almost track marks, but not quite.

John stared, heartbroken and appalled. Beneath him, Sherlock fidgeted restlessly; his face, turned sideways into the bedclothes, was hot with shame. “Just say it, John," he muttered finally, to the sheets, too disgusted to look the doctor in the face. "Go on. Tell me it's awful, irresponsible, stupid, selfish. I know that's what you think.” He made to sit up and push John away. 

But John didn't let him go. Instead, he pushed Sherlock back down onto the bed and wrapped his arms him, covering Sherlock with his own body, closing him into a full-body embrace. “I’m sorry," he said.

Sherlock blinked, stunned. He craned his neck up to get a better look at the place where John had buried his head against his chest. “What did you say?”

“I said I’m sorry,” John answered, voice a little louder and now heavy with blatant remorse. He drew Sherlock tighter against him.

Sherlock shook his head, entirely confused. “It’s not your fault, John,” he said. “You said it yourself; no one forced me to do it. I'm the one who put the needle in my arm.”

“ _And you shouldn’t have!”_ shouted John. Suddenly intensely furious, he uncoupled from Sherlock and reared back; for a moment it seemed he would slap the detective across the face. But then John's anger broke, and his face crumpled in brutal sadness. He hung his head, clinging to Sherlock’s pockmarked arm. "Do you hear me, Sherlock?" he said. "You shouldn’t have done it! Jesus Christ." He jabbed a finger into Sherlock's chest. "Don’t do it again. Promise me you won't ever do it again."  
  
"John..."  
  
"Promise me!"

"I promise..." Sherlock's voice was strangely thick, "...to try." John gave him a shattered, plaintive look, and Sherlock turned away, blinking quickly. "I still don't understand why _you're_ apologizing to _me,"_ he huffed out, changing the subject.

"Because you're better than drugs!" cried John, gripping Sherlock by the shoulders as if afraid he might at any given moment scatter to the wind. "So much better! You're brilliant and funny and gorgeous and you're my best friend, and I should have told you that, that night, instead of running away like a _fucking_ coward. I should have figured it out then." John shifted his weight atop Sherlock, leaning in until their noses were nearly touching. The proximity reminded both men of their nakedness, of their intentions in the bedroom; redness crept up into their faces, but neither pulled away. "I'm sorry, Sherlock," John whispered, "because should have told you then, even though I was afraid to say it, or even admit it to myself. I should have told you."

Sherlock’s head was swimming. “Told me what?”

John’s eyes went soft. “Do you really not know?” he asked, petting the detective’s cheek, reaching up to brush a curl from his bright grey eyes.

“John, I— _hah!”_

All the air left Sherlock’s lungs in a strangled shout as John suddenly ground his hips down into Sherlock’s own, bringing their cocks together in an electrifying press of flesh. Sherlock threw his head back, straining against John’s body, and in return John nuzzled into his exposed neck, kissing yet another line from his clavicle to his jaw.

“You’re everything to me, Sherlock,” he whispered between pants and touches, moist tonguing and sharp drags of teeth. “That’s what. I love you.”

_“John…”_

It was all Sherlock could say, just one breathless word, and then John’s lips were on his, forcing his mouth open. Their tongues slid together, hot and hard, and both men groaned, eyes tightly shut as their hands scrabbled for purchase in each others' hair.

For a moment they coasted like that, entwined together at blissful equilibrium, and then John’s hand found its way to Sherlock’s cock.

“Tell me what you like,” he said, panting as he closed his fingers around Sherlock’s girth and began roughly working him up and down. “Tell me what you need.”

Sherlock could manage only a strangled gasp, and buried his face in his hands. “I don’t know,” he said at last, forcing the words out between breaths huffed in time with the little circles John was now rubbing over the head of his cock with the pad of his thumb. “I’ve never done this before.”

John laid an encouraging kiss to the corner of Sherlock’s mouth. “I know, Sherlock,” he said. “It’s all right, I don't care. You’re doing so well. Just show me how you—”

But Sherlock stopped him with a suddenly urgent look. _“John,”_ he said, sharply closing his hand around John’s arm to bring _that_ to a halt as well. “You don’t understand. _I have_ never _done this before.”_

John blinked, astonished. _“Never?!”_

It was _not_ , the doctor would reflect later, the kindest thing to say. Sherlock’s face shuttered up, and John could feel his cock deflate slightly in his hand, even before he had leveraged himself to his elbows and scooted out from under John’s hold. “My apologies,” he muttered, red in the face and now not from physical exertion alone. “It wasn’t my intent to _disappoint_ you.”

“That's not what I meant!" said John, backtracking as quickly as he could and also at the same time trying to wrap his mind around the enormity of what Sherlock had just revealed. “Please, Sherlock, I didn’t mean it like that. I'm sorry. It's just surprising is all. I mean, have you really never...you know..." John made a weak little motion in the air between them, and Sherlock flushed even deeper and turned away.

"No."

"Not even by yourself?" John asked. It seemed so impossible. "Not even with Irene?"

Sherlock whipped about, bewildered. _"Who?"_

"Irene Adler? The Woman?"  
  
Recognition clicked into place in Sherlock's eyes. "Oh. Her. No."

"But why?"

"Because I wasn't attracted to her, John!"

"No, I mean, why _never?"_

Sherlock blinked, staring at John like it was obvious. "Because I never wanted to," he said.

John felt like his brain was doing something very strange, like falling offline and tripping into overdrive at once. Licking his lips, he stared down at Sherlock’s cock jutting out between his legs, still angry and red through the rubber of the condom but now in the lull beginning to seriously flag, and then up to the detective’s heaving, sweating chest, and his throat, imprinted with John’s own bite marks, and to his lips, darkened and swollen and slick with—

“Jesus,” muttered John, sitting back and covering his face with his hands. _“Jesus.”_

Sherlock began shifting about on the bed. John looked up to see him hugging his knees sullenly to his chest. “You don’t want to now,” he mumbled to his feet.

John frowned, shook his head. “No, I—”

“You’re feeling sorry for me.”

“No, it’s isn't that—"

“You don’t trust me. You’re worried I can’t handle it, that there's something wrong with me—”

“Dammit, Sherlock,” burst John, “shut up. _Shut up!_ It’s not any of that! I...I just..." He grit his teeth, unsure of how to say it. "I just want to know that this is really what you want, okay? I want to know that you're absolutely sure." Sherlock's eyes narrowed.  
  
"I already told you I'm sure," he said darkly. "You've been asking me if I'm sure every thirty seconds since the moment we started."

"I know, but Sherlock—"

"I do understand the concept of consent, John!" Sherlock snapped. "I'm not an imbecile. I wouldn't be here if I didn't want to be doing this with you." He scowled. "But if you can't trust me to make that decision, and if my lack of experience is so utterly repulsive to you, then perhaps it would be best for you to go." He pointed to the door.

John set his jaw. "The only reason I'd think you were an imbecile, Sherlock," he said, "was if you really believed that after everything that's happened I'd be fool enough to go and run away from you again." The detective harrumphed at this but didn't argue, and John sighed and drew close behind him, wrapping his arms around Sherlock's body. "I'm sorry," he murmured, pressing his chest along the curve of Sherlock's back and setting a kiss upon the shell of his ear. "I didn't mean to imply you couldn't make an informed decision. That's not what I think. If you say you want this, then I trust you. I promise." He leaned his head against Sherlock's temple, imploring. "Forgive me, Sherlock" he murmured. "I trust you. I trust you."

"John..." John could hear desire quickly outpacing irritation in Sherlock's voice.

"I _want_ you, Sherlock," he whispered to him.

Sherlock answered with a long relenting whine, and dipped his head back to brush his lips along the seam of John's mouth. John groaned, rocking a bit against Sherlock's body. "I've an idea to make it up to you," he murmured, winding his fingers into the detective's curls. "Care to give it a go?"

Sherlock snuffled out an affirmative, and John moved to position his bent legs at either side of Sherlock’s body, resting his forehead against his nape. Gently, he began to massage Sherlock’s back, starting with the detective's shoulders and slowly working down the column his spine. Sherlock sighed and melted back against him, and John smiled; now, each time he pressed his thumbs into a new group of muscles, he mouthed a wet kiss against the detective’s neck.

“Feel good?” John asked, pulling away enough to gulp down a lungful of air.

“Mmm,” answered Sherlock, rolling his head forward. But he was getting starting to get fidgety again, restless beneath John’s hands, and when John peered over his shoulder he saw that the detective was nearly completely hard once more.

“Touch yourself,” John whispered in his ear.

Sherlock stiffened slightly, unsure. “John, I don't—”

“Start just the way I did to you before," John told him. "Here…” Carefully, he took one of Sherlock’s hands in his and brought up over his shoulder, giving it a hearty lick—he could taste the salt of perspiration in the man’s palm, Jesus Christ—before guiding it back to the detective’s lap. Mesmerized, he watched as Sherlock’s fingers slowly came to life, touching delicately along the bulging vein running down the underside of his cock, before at last taking himself in hand.

 _“John—!”_ Sherlock whimpered at his own touch, and John gripped him across the chest from behind, grounding him in place.

“That’s it,” he whispered, as Sherlock’s hand began to make small, stuttering jerks up and down. “Just…yeah, exactly, just like that. Lightly, now. Go slowly. Take your time.”

Sherlock nodded frantically, following John’s cues. He quickly worked up a rhythm, exhaling a steady stream of breathy moans as John inundated him with kisses and praise. “Lower," John told him then. "To…um…down to your…” He was breathing so erratically he couldn’t get the words out.

“My testicles?” Sherlock finished for him, as evenly as his own sex-roughened voice could manage, and John moaned against the sweat-damp column of Sherlock’s neck and nodded and nodded and nodded.

“Yes, there, oh god, Sherlock, do it, please…”

And Sherlock _did—_ his fingers slid down to the base of his cock and wrapped around his sac and he _pulled—_ and John simply couldn’t hold back any longer. With a heady grunt he catapulted his chest against Sherlock’s back and rammed his cock up against the detective’s lower spine.

Both men cried out at once.

“Do you feel that, Sherlock?” John hissed, fiercely thrusting up again so Sherlock would feel every solid detail of him. “Fucking hell, that’s what you do to me, you bloody brilliant man…”

“John,” Sherlock gasped, frantically jerking himself now and sounding almost delirious with want. “John, please, let me see you, I want to see you.”

He was clambering around in John’s arms before John could even manage a response, but all John could do was nod yes, yes, yes, of _course_ yes, how could it not be yes, when Sherlock sounded like that, and _looked_ like that, savage and ravished and alight with intensity. John felt he could cry with relief— _h_ _ere_ was the man he knew, finally, the one who ran down criminals in the shadows of London’s streets for nothing more than the thrill of the chase; _here_ was the man with the staggering intellect, blistering and scintillating in turns, the man who had found John broken and listless and saved him, scooped him up and rescued him from the brink of tedium and disaster.

Sherlock’s lips at were at John's throat. He was practically seated in John’s lap now, sucking ravenously at a point on the doctor’s neck, and John held him close, groaning in delight. “God, that’s unbelievable,” he gushed, overwhelmed by the sensation of Sherlock’s hands flying everywhere, running over every inch of John’s body they could reach, through scruff of his hair, across his chest, his nipples. “You’re unbelievable, Sherlock. You’re _fantastic.”_

Sherlock’s cock was prodding him straight in the stomach. _“Now,_ John,” he gasped. “Now, please, I need you to, I need it; please, John, _PLEASE!”_

 _“Fuck,”_ John hissed, and bowed out his back, just enough to take Sherlock’s cock in his hand and guide it to his own, wrapping his fingers around both their lengths and beginning to work them up and down, together.

The noises Sherlock was making were sinful. They were _obscene._ He was like a live wire in John’s lap, thrusting frenziedly into his palm, and despite the condoms John was overcome with the absurd notion that he could quite literally _feel_ every contour of him as their cocks slid together. And then Sherlock began to whine and tense, digging his nails into John’s back, and John knew he was right on the edge.

“That’s it, Sherlock,” he huffed, desperate to see him come. “That’s it, yeah, oh, god, you’re doing so well, Sherlock, you're perfect, you're perfect…”

_“John…”_

“I’m here,” John whispered fervently, gripping him harder. “I’ve got you, Sherlock. You’re all right. Just let go. Please, love, just let go…”

Sherlock made a small, keening noise against John’s throat, just one, and then John felt Sherlock’s balls draw up tight against his body. The rest happened in a blur, locked into John’s memory as flashes of time: Sherlock’s cock jerking in his hand; a rough, ragged moan; a passionate, full-body shudder. Instinctively, John shifted position, using his leg as leverage to begin a mad rut against the soft flesh of Sherlock’s belly, and then he was coming too, spinning apart like a tightly wound mainspring set free to loose and scatter.

   
∞

 

John blinked back to full awareness to find Sherlock slumped boneless against the surface of his chest, breathing hard and shivering. John was shivering, too; indeed, he could feel the prickle of gooseflesh on his arms and legs, and even tangled together their bodies had in the afterglow begun to turn sticky and cold.

“Sherlock,” John whispered. The detective grunted, then shook his head, pressing it harder against John’s shoulder. John cradled him a moment longer, but the more the endorphins began to siphon off the more uncomfortable their position became, and when at last he said, “Come on, Sherlock, let me get us cleaned up,” Sherlock relinquished his hold and sat back.

He looked wrecked, thought John, even in the low light of the room; his hair had turned frizzy in the humidity of their lovemaking, sticking out at all angles where it wasn’t plastered to his face with sweat, and the color was still high in his cheeks, his lips still puffy and red. John took a moment to smooth down the worst of his curls, then silently slid from the bed and headed for the loo, where he disposed of his condom, splashed a good deal of water on his face, and ran a flannel under the tap for Sherlock.

When he returned to the bedroom, the detective was hunched over on the sheets; through the tangle of his bent limbs John could see he was staring with a fixed expression at the condom still sheathing his cock, tentatively prodding the rim of it with the point of his finger. He looked a bit lost, like he had absolutely no idea what to do with it or how it had come to be there.

John climbed back onto the bed. “Let me,” he said simply, and Sherlock dropped his legs open and allowed John to peel the rubber off. “Better?” he asked with a faint smile, and Sherlock nodded mutely, swaying a bit as John proceeded to gently wipe the moisture from his face and neck and chest and lastly his genitals, before balling the condom and towel together and tossing everything to the floor. “There,” he said, once he was done. Sherlock was staring over his shoulder, at the wall.

"John," he said.    

"Yeah?"

"I know you were the one who convinced Mycroft to find me."  
  
John winced. "Sherlock, I'm sorry _—_ "  
  
Sherlock silenced him with a sharp shake of his head. "No, John," he said. "That's not what I mean. It's just...I...I don't..." He buried his head in his knees as if embarrassed to say the rest. "Why are you so good to me, John?”

John's chest was too tight to speak. Instead, he cupped Sherlock’s face in his hand and pressed a kiss to his mouth, chaste and sweet and full of everything he didn’t quite yet know how to say. “Because you deserve it,” he said, pulling away, and Sherlock looked a little stunned and a little exhilarated and seemed somehow to understand. Then John turned down the bedclothes, and Sherlock climbed inside, and John followed him, silently wrapping his shorter body into the detective’s longer one until they found a position that was warm and comfortable for them both. Sherlock sighed and nuzzled into John’s chest; John reached over to turn out the light. He fell asleep with his nose buried in the detective’s hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the aeonian delay. Here's to hoping this chapter makes it up to you.
> 
> p.s. You can listen to the song Sherlock plays for John, _The Lark Ascending_ by Ralph Vaughan Williams, by following the link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b0rN43q6jo. It's a fairly common piece, and not one I really believe the canon Sherlock would have in his repertoire...though one never knows. If you choose to listen, beware—the narrator talks straight over the beginning of the song, which is extremely irritating and a bit of a bizarre decision on the part of the program editor. But it's a lovely rendition regardless, and a good example of the version written for violin and piano (which would of course be what John would hear) rather than the full orchestral version that seems to be more widely proliferated today.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Cover Art for 'Terra Incognita, Or: A Handbook for the Scientist in Love'](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2335307) by [Cleo_Calliope](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cleo_Calliope/pseuds/Cleo_Calliope)




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